NORTH BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) announces three new recipients of awards given by the Deeda Blair Research Initiative for Disorders of the Brain. The awards recognize clinician-scientists who are pursuing bold research with the potential to transform the diagnosis and treatment of severe mental illness.
“My intent for this award is to provide start-up funding for the next generation of exceptional neuroscientists and to help bridge the gap between basic research and clinical psychiatry in practice,” said Mrs. William McCormick Blair, Jr., a member of the FNIH Board of Directors. “Mental disorders represent a far-reaching and devastating health crisis, and I want to support creative, visionary — even disruptive — research that accelerates the discovery of new ideas and solutions.”
Applications for the awards were first peer-reviewed by principal investigators at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and then reviewed by a scientific committee of advisors to the Deeda Blair Research Initiative.
Thomas Insel, MD, former director of NIH’s National Institute on Mental Health and co-chair of the selection committee, said, “The Deeda Blair Initiative affords talented young researchers the opportunity to explore new ways of understanding the brain and mental illness, take risks, and harness emerging technology to potentially transform the field.”
The three awardees, who will each receive $200,000, are:
Matthew L. Baum, MD, PhD, DPhil, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, for his proposal to investigate autoantibodies as possible diagnostic biomarkers of bipolar disorder. The research will build on his ongoing work that shows potential for autoantibody patterns to distinguish people with bipolar disorder from healthy individuals. Using a recently developed technique, Dr. Baum will examine types of antibodies that haven’t been studied before in bipolar disorder, specifically those targeting viruses and more complex, 3D-shapes in proteins. His goal is to find a set of autoantibodies that could be developed into a simple blood test that could accurately diagnose bipolar disorder and identify subtypes of the disease.
Jihye Kim, MD, Weill Cornell Medicine, for her proposal to use insights into neurotrophic signaling to discover novel psychiatric medications that directly target rigid thinking and poor impulse control, which are symptoms that occur across a range of neuropsychiatric disorders. Deficient neurotrophic signaling results in impaired learning, memory, executive function, and decision-making. Using an AI-based algorithm, Dr. Kim and her colleagues have developed a structural model of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and its receptor to uncover a set of novel compounds that directly increase neuroplasticity. Dr. Kim will test the safety and efficacy of these compounds, with the goal of developing a new class of antidepressants with an improved side effect profile and the potential to repair the aberrant neural circuitries underlying neuropsychiatric disorders.
Anish Mitra, MD, PhD, Stanford University School of Medicine, for his proposal to investigate a more precise method for treating mental illness through brain stimulation. Current treatments such as electroconvulsive therapy and transcranial magnetic stimulation do not work for all patients and can cause side effects, largely because the best places or ways to stimulate the brain for specific conditions haven’t been determined. Dr. Mitra’s laboratory has discovered that brain networks possess “pacemaker sites”—single regions that, when stimulated, can selectively activate or suppress entire distributed networks and control behavior. Having confirmed this approach in mice, Dr. Mitra proposes to test it in humans by using brain imaging to identify patient-specific pacemaker sites and determining whether stimulating them can selectively engage or suppress entire brain networks implicated in psychiatric disease.
Learn more about the Deeda Blair Research Initiative for Disorders of the Brain and the 10 previous awardees at FNIH.org/Blair.
About the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health
The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) builds public-private partnerships that connect leading biomedical scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with their counterparts in life sciences companies, academia, patient organizations, foundations, and regulatory agencies (including the Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency). Through team science, the FNIH solves complex health challenges and accelerates breakthroughs for patients, regardless of who they are or what health threats they face. The FNIH contributes to the development of new therapies, diagnostics, and potential cures; advances global health; and celebrates and helps train the next generations of scientists. Established by Congress to support the mission of the NIH, the FNIH is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) charitable organization. For more information about the FNIH, please visit fnih.org.
Contacts
Kathy Scarbeck
FNIH
301-259-3026
KScarbeck@fnih.org
