Clark, Karl

My lab, the Behavioral and Functional Genetics Laboratory at Mayo Clinic, is built upon my interest and long history of technology development and genome engineering. I collaborate with a large array of scientists with whom I work to develop new methods of gene editing, and my lab focuses on deployment in zebrafish. We apply these molecular and genetic tools to dissect and discover the interactions between genes and the environment that affect both short and long-term changes in physiology and behavior. We have developed zebrafish assays and genetic tools to identify modifiers of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (interrenal) stress responses looking at both rapid (non-genomic) and delayed (genomic) responses to stressors. Our expertise in both gene editing and behavioral genetics have made us an ideal partner to work with the Center for Individualized Medicine’s Translational Omics Program to functionally test patient variants using diverse biological assays and models to assess potential for pathogenicity in a wide variety of rare disorders. In the next five to ten years, we will move beyond diagnostics by taking advantage of gene editing tools and animal models to develop new therapeutics for rare disease.