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= Caroline Nievergelt = Caroline Nievergelt is a researcher with interests in genetics, psychiatric disorders, and anthropology. She has pursued her interests in different research areas, including genetic and behavioral research in non-human primates and psychopathology research relating to circadian oscillators.

Education
Caroline Nievergelt graduated with her B.S. in the Department of Biology from the University of Zurich in Switzerland. She decided to continue her schooling at the University of Zurich and went on to get her master's degree in 1991 in the Department of Biology and her Ph.D. in the Department of Anthropology. Nievergelt furthered her education by completing two postdoctoral fellowships at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Her first fellowship trained her in molecular and population genetics. Her second fellowship in human genetics trained her in statistical genetics in the Department of Psychiatry. Every aspect of Nievergelt’s schooling has been instrumental in the work she pursued. In 2007, Scripps Research Institute recruited Nievergelt as an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular and Environmental Medicine. While holding this position she did research on phenotypes related to cardiovascular disease, circadian rhythms, mental health, and longevity. A year later, Nievergelt became a faculty member at UCSD where she continues to do research to this day as an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry.

Caroline Nievergelt is very active in the scientific community and holds numerous esteemed positions. She is involved in the UCSD Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny (CARTA) and the Center for Circadian Biology (CCB). She is also a co-Principle Investigator of the Center of Excellence, Stress, and Mental Health (CESAMH), biobank, and co-Associate Director of CESAMH’s Neuroscience Research Unit. Furthermore, Nievergelt has worked collaboratively with many organizations, such as the Longevity Consortium and the Pharmacogenomics of Mood Stabilizer Response in Bipolar Disorder (PGBD).

Research on Primatology
As a primatologist, Nievergelt studied behavioral, endocrinological, and genetic aspects of primate social and reproductive systems. She spent many years observing the endangered primates in Madagascar in order to obtain information about their behavior. Due to anthropogenic factors like illegal hunting, agricultural expansion, logging, oil extraction, and many others, many primate populations in Madagascar are endangered and going extinct. In order to raise public awareness, Nievergelt and other scientists partook in research to gather and share essential information about these endangered primate populations and their importance to the ecosystem. This information was also utilized to create new primate conservation projects that consider ways to sustain the human population that does not involve harming neighboring primate populations.

One of the species Nievergelt researched was the Alaotran gentle lemur, an endangered primate found in the marshlands of Madagascar along Lake Alaotra. In 2002, Nievergelt conducted a non-invasive genotyping study on the Alaotran gentle lemurs and attempted to genotype the entire community. At the time, little was known about this species, so this study allowed for the discovery of novel information. Genotyping allowed her to reconstruct unobservable demographic events, which led to the discovery that the Alotran's social group consists of one reproducing male and one or two closely related breeding female along with their offspring. While observing this species she found that these lemurs utilize an indirect male defense strategy called research defense, rather than a direct mate defense strategy. Males who exhibit a resource defense strategy will defend food resources for a group of females in exchange for reproductive access. On the other hand, males who display a mate defense strategy will be hostile towards male competitors by herding the females in the group away from other males, especially if the females in the group are estrous. Although defense mechanisms can overlap, the Alaotran gentle lemur's tendency to form small groups is typical of primates who practice the resource defense strategy. Nievergelt's primatology research has been utilized in the pursuit to learn more about this population of lemurs and has aided in the conservation of this endangered species. Nievergelt's work, along with other researchers, led to the creation of conservation plans that pronounced Lake Alaotra as a protected area in 2007 and substantially reduced the number of wildfires in the marshlands.

Research on Psychopathology
As a psychiatrist, Nievergelt displayed interest in biomarkers and genetics of psychiatric disorders like PTSD and bipolar disorder. She is currently leading the statistical analysis of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) for PTSD.

PTSD
In 2014 and 2015, Nievergelt published a study on combat-exposed U.S. Marines. In the study, Nievergelt performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) that found evidence for a novel PTSD gene PRTFDC1. Her utilization of GWAS contributed to the progression in finding risk loci in PTSD. These studies are new and have not been replicated due to the unique trauma the subjects experienced. She continued to examine combat-exposed U.S. marines and investigated whether heart rate variability (HRV) before combat deployment correlates with increased risk of developing PTSD. She found that increased PTSD after deployment is associated with increased low to high frequency HRV before deployment. Her studies give insight into how changes in the autonomic nervous system can increase the risk for PTSD, and interventions that are able to reverse these changes may be essential in preventing PTSD. The relationship between HRV and PTSD has been further explored to prevent PTSD among soldiers before deployment. A recent study in 2018, Nievergelt conducted a meta analysis of the epigenome-wide association studies that found that the disorder is linked to differential methylation on the two CpG sites HGS and NGR1. This study further investigated how PTSD genetics varies in expression across a large population.

Bipolar Disorder
Nievergelt has studied the role of the human clock gene Cry1 in bipolar disorder. Previously, Cry1 has been investigated in bipolar disorder due to its proximity to a linkage hotspot associated with bipolar disorder. Nievergelt investigated 52 bipolar families and sequenced each Cry1 gene. She found 16 SNP mutations and 3 base pair insertions, however could find no functional difference in the Cry1 protein resulting from these mutations. From this, she found no link between Cry1 and bipolar disorder.

Nievergelt has also studied the role of many other human clock genes, including ARNTL, CLOCK, CRY2, CSNK1ɛ, DBP, GSK3β, NPAS2, PER1, PER2, and PER3, investigating 52 different SNPs among the 10 clock genes. From the ten genes, she was able to isolate 2 genes, ARNTL and PER3 that indicated possible associations with bipolar disorder.

In 2018, Nievergelt was part of a team that investigated the impact Lithium Treatment has on various cases of bipolar disorder. Over the 5-year study, subjects were transitioned to lithium mono-therapy, which previously helped in regulation of Inositol Monophosphates (IMP) and Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3 (GSK3), both of which are hypothesized to play a role in bipolar disorder. This study then divided the subjects into those who responded to the lithium therapy (Li-R) and those who did not (Li-NR). From these two groups, it was found that there was a difference in cellular period between the two groups as those in the Li-R group had statistically shorter period cells while those in the Li-NR group had longer period cells. From this study, it was concluded that circadian period length and phase can help predict whether a subject will respond to lithium mono-treatment.