Professor Davies founded the Unit in 1999 to bring together scientists using model organisms and genomics for the analysis of human disease genes.  More than a decade later, the Unit programmes now place greater emphasis on the functional analysis of genomes than on model organisms as the explanatory power of DNA sequencing improves.

The FGU is mostly housed within the Oxford Centre for Gene Function

FGU is embedded within the Department of Physiology Anatomy and Genetics and collaborates widely across the Medical Division of the University of Oxford. For example, Davies is an active participant in the OXION ion channel initiative (click here for more information), headed by Professor Ashcroft. Professor Ponting works closely with Prof Flint and others in the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics. We collaborate with colleagues at the MRC Mammalian Genome Unit at Harwell on the use of mutagenesis programmes for the analysis of movement disorders. The FGU is a major contributor to the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre (http://opdc.medsci.ox.ac.uk/) which was recently awarded £5m over 5 years by Parkinson’s UK to determine the earliest pathological pathways in Parkinson's disease.