Dr Toma is a Senior Research Officer at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA). His scientific career has focused on understanding the genetic contributions to a range of complex psychiatric disorders across multiple prestigious institutions in Europe and Australia. Currently, he leads projects on novel candidate genes implicated in bipolar disorder and autism through high-throughput genetic technologies.
He joined the group of Prof....view more
Dr Toma is a Senior Research Officer at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA). His scientific career has focused on understanding the genetic contributions to a range of complex psychiatric disorders across multiple prestigious institutions in Europe and Australia. Currently, he leads projects on novel candidate genes implicated in bipolar disorder and autism through high-throughput genetic technologies.
He joined the group of Prof. Anthony Monaco at Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics (WTCHG), University of Oxford (UK), to study functional aspects of the dyslexia-associated KIA00319 gene. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna (Italy) in 2009 under the supervision of Prof. Elena Maestrini and Prof. Anthony Monaco, where he focused on autism susceptibility genes in the context of the main international consortia in genetics of autism (IMGSAC and AGP). He then started postdoctoral research in the group of Prof. Bru Cormand at University of Barcelona (Spain) focused on psychiatric diseases and rare Mendelian diseases (2009-2014). In 2010 he received the most competitive and prestigious European fellowship (Marie Curie), and funding to perform the first exome sequencing in multiplex autism families that led the identification of novel candidate genes for the disorder. In 2014, he joined the group of Dr Fullerton at Neuroscience Research Australia investigating the genetics of bipolar disorder by whole-exome/genome sequencing, structural variant analysis and association studies.
During his career he received over $25,000 in research prizes from national or international funding bodies. He has authored >30 research articles in top ranked journals, including Nature Genetics, Molecular Psychiatry (x3), and Science, with >2,300 citations, and attracting over $3M as Chief Investigator across Europe and Australia. He presented at national and international congresses >40 oral or poster presentations. He has successfully supervised or mentored PhD students, Master or honour students from the Universities of Bologna, Barcelona and UNSW.
To read his publications, go to https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Claudio_Toma
His webpage at NeuRA, https://www.neura.edu.au/staff/dr-claudio-toma/
My Qualifications
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PhD:
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2009, Human Genetics, University of Bologna, Italy
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Bachelor Degree:
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2004, Molecular Biology (Cum Laude), University of Bologna, Italy
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My Awards
- NeuRA Publication Excellence Award (2017)
- Travel Award and finalist Poster Award: World Congress Psychiatry Genetics (2012), Funding: ISPG
- Fellowship: Marie Curie (FP7 EU program), 24 months (2011-12), Funding: EU
- Fellowship: CIBER-ER (Research on Rare diseases), 12 months (2010), Funding: Spanish Government
- Award: Marco Polo (Research mobility program), 5 months (2009), Funding: University of Bologna (Italy)
- Fellowship: Autism Molgen (FP6 EU program), 36 months (2006-2008), Funding: EU
- Studentship: WTCHG, 2 months (2005), Funding: Wellcome Trust, University of Oxford, UK
- Award: Research mobility program, 3 months (2005), Funding: University of Bologna (Italy)
- Award: Telethon Italia, 5 months (2004), Funding: Telethon Foundation (Italy)
- Studentship: Exchange Erasmus program, 10 months (2002-2003), Funding: EU
My Research Supervision
Supervision keywords
Areas of supervision
ILP, Honours, Masters, and PhD
Projects are available in these research topics:
- Rare variant contributions to the genetic architecture of bipolar disorder
- Exome sequencing and linkage studies in extended families with bipolar disorder
- Exome sequencing in High Functioning Autism
- Rare variants in multiplex autism families
- The LRP1 as novel candidate gene implicated in psychiatric disorders
- The metabotropic glutamate receptor gene (GRM1) in psychiatric disorders: genetic analyses of multiple classes of variants
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3901-7507