A researcher from the University of Queensland has been awarded over a million dollars to find the genetic secrets behind thousands of diseases.

The UQ Queensland Brain Institute's (QBI) Dr Jian Yang is one of two recipients of the Sylvia and Charles Viertel Charitable Foundation's Senior Medical Research Fellowship, which has granted him $1.225 million to unlock the genetic underpinning of diseases such as schizophrenia, Motor Neuron Disease (MND) and cancer.

Fellow QBI researcher, Professor Peter Visscher, said the fellowship would provide $245,000 a year over five years to support Dr Yang's work.

“Dr Yang will apply his background in genetics and statistics along with his outstanding skills in computational biology to answer fundamental questions about the genetics of common disease and to develop software tools that will analyse millions of DNA markers,” Prof Visscher said.

“This will give us a better understanding of why some people are more susceptible to disease than others.”

Dr Yang has previously won a UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award for work identifying genetic markers for motor neuron disease, as well as other prizes for outstanding biomedical research.

The University of Queensland has compiled this video on Dr Yang and his intriguing investigations.