Fourteen Yale researchers received a total of about $1 million to help fund research into schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder and mood disorders.
Only one other university received as many grants as Yale from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD). The organization is the largest, non-governmental entity funding psychiatric research worldwide.
"The proposals from Yale scientists were extraordinary," said Constance Lieber, president of NARSAD's board of directors. "We are hopeful their research allows us to gain a better understanding of mental illness and leads us to discoveries that have the potential to improve millions of lives."
Dr. Benjamin Bunney, the Charles B.G. Murphy Professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry, as well as a professor of pharmacology and neurobiology, says there are several reasons why there is increasing interest in research into the causes and treatment of mental illness.
"NARSAD, under Connie Lieber's guidance, has been extremely effective not only in funding research, but in promoting the understanding that mental illnesses are biological brain disorders," Bunney said.
"In addition, there has been an extensive and extended effort on the part of client/family groups, such as the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, providers and researchers, to educate both the public and congressional leaders as to the enormous suffering experienced by those with mental illness and their families, as well as the detrimental impact mental illness has on our economy," he says.
Bunney, whose grant concerns depression, was one of three faculty members who received a $100,000 Distinguished Investigator award from NARSAD. The other two researchers, Patricia Goldman-Rakic, professor of neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry, and John Krystal, associate professor of psychiatry, focus on schizophrenia.
Eleven researchers each received $60,000 Young Investigator grants. Their names and their areas of research are: Dr. Deyan Budimirovich, assistant professor of psychiatry, mood disorders; Dr. Idil Cavus, postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry, depression; Naomi Driesen, postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry, schizophrenia; Tony George, assistant professor of psychiatry, schizophrenia; Stephen Gold, postdoctoral fellow in psychiatry, depression; Graeme Mason, assistant professor of psychiatry and magnetic resonance, depression and bipolar disorder; Dr. Marc Potenza, assistant professor of psychiatry, schizophrenia; Wei-Xing Shi, assistant professor of psychiatry, schizophrenia; Gilles Tamagnan, associate research scientist in psychiatry, depression; Dr. Elizabeth Walter, resident in psychiatry, schizophrenia; and Dr. Graham Williams, associate research scientist in neurobiology, schizophrenia.
NARSAD has awarded more than $99 million in grants at 159 universities and research centers since 1987. The organization's Scientific Review Council, composed of 61 scientists and academic leaders in all areas of neurobiological and psychiatric research, screens hundreds of applications each year. The hope is that grant recipients will play key roles in discovering the causes, new treatments and eventual cures for mental illness.
-- By Jacqueline Weaver
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