Distinguished mental retardation researcher to inaugurate lecture series

LAWRENCE -- A researcher who conducted a groundbreaking long-term study of children with the fragile X mental retardation syndrome is the first speaker of the Kansas Colloquia on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities at the University of Kansas.

Donald Bailey, director of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will discuss findings from the Carolina Fragile X Project at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, at the Computer Center auditorium.

The Kansas Colloquia on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities will bring scientists in the forefront of developmental disabilities research to the Lawrence and KU Medical Center campuses for free public lectures and small group meetings with KU faculty and students.

According to Bailey's research, so little has been known about the early development of infants with fragile X syndrome, or FXS -- the most common inherited form of mental retardation -- that physicians often do not diagnose the disorder until children are 3 years old.

Children with FXS, unlike those with Down syndrome, do not have identifying physical features as infants. As children with FXS get older, doctors often confuse their developmental or behavioral symptoms with other disorders. Bailey's study points to the need for earlier identification and treatment of these children.

Fragile X syndrome affects a single gene on what is termed a "fragile site" on the X chromosome and occurs in both males and females, but in males more frequently and more severely.

"Professor Bailey and his colleagues are making inroads in determining whether and when screening for fragile X syndrome should be offered on a routine basis," said Steven Warren, KU Life Span Institute director. "Their work has truly been groundbreaking."

William Greenough, Swanlund chair and Center for Advanced Study professor of psychology, psychiatry, and cell and structural biology at the University of Illinois, will continue the colloquia's discussion of fragile X developments at noon Thursday, May 9, in Rieke Auditorium at KU Medical Center.

Greenough, a neuroscientist, is focusing on the role of FMRP in FXS. FMRP is a protein that regulates brain function lacking in individuals with FXS.

The colloquia are sponsored by KU developmental disabilities researchers who represent a spectrum of the behavioral and biological sciences, including the Kansas Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies, the Institute for Child Development, the Center for Reproductive Sciences, the Beach Center on Disability, the Juniper Gardens Children's Project and the KU Center on Developmental Disabilities.