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| Martha Shenton, PhD | Ofer Pasternak, PhD |
Martha Shenton, PhD, and Ofer Pasternak, PhD, both of the Departments of Psychiatry and Radiology, received a five-year, $33 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) entitled “Clinical Trial Data Processing, Analysis, and Coordination Center (CT-DPACC) for the Accelerating Medicines Partnership Schizophrenia (AMP® SCZ) Project.”
Nearly one in five young people presenting for psychiatric care are identified as being at clinical high risk for psychosis, and approximately 20 percent of this population will go on to develop a psychotic disorder. Despite this critical public health need, drug development to target these individuals has been lacking. In collaboration with investigators from École de technologie supérieure in Montreal and Mount Sinai Health System in New York, Shenton and Pasternak’s clinical trial seeks to identify drug compounds to target and treat individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis and to prevent the onset of psychosis. This trial builds on a prior, five-year observational study for which Shenton has served as contact principal investigator (PI).
More broadly, the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® (AMP®) program aims to accelerate the treatment of 10 diseases or disorders where a greater understanding is needed. This program was established in 2014 by Francis Collins, MD, PhD, then director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), who went before Congress to request funding for this urgent public health need.
Shenton is founding director of the Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory and is the contact PI who will oversee this research project. Her research focuses on investigating brain and behavior associations using advanced neuroimaging techniques to understand neuropsychiatric disorders, including youth at risk for psychosis, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as the impact of repetitive head trauma in professional football players, professional soccer players and university hockey players.
Pasternak is the director of Neuroscience Image Computing in the Psychiatry Neuroimaging Laboratory at BWH. On the current project, he is a multiple PI where he will oversee data analysis. His research focuses on developing early markers for brain disorders and creating new imaging and analysis techniques.
Other multiple principal investigators on this research project include René Kahn, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, and Sylvain Bouix, PhD, director of the Neuro-iX Laboratory, Department of Software and IT Engineering, École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS), Montreal, Canada.
The NIMH is a research organization specializing in mental illness and one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the NIH, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services responsible for biomedical and health related research. Established by Congress in 1990, the FNIH is an independent, not-for-profit charitable organization that convenes public and private partnerships between the NIH, academia, life science companies and patient advocacy groups.
