We offer A RESEARCHER’S PERSPECTIVE, based on a presentation given by Lisa M. Monteggia, Ph.D., of Vanderbilt University, at a zoom event hosted by BBRF. The topic of her presentation was “Studying Ketamine’s Rapid Effects to Unlock Secrets for Developing Better Antidepressants.” Dr. Monteggia reflects on what she has learned about antidepressant mechanisms from the therapeutic results obtained with the experimental drug ketamine.
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Our PATHWAYS TO THE FUTURE story is about an unconventional approach to developing new psychiatric drugs. Based on an initiative by the National Institute of Mental Health, it’s called “Fast-Fail” and is designed to weed out the weakest drug candidates early in the process, to save time and money. In its first comprehensive test, a team led by two BBRF grantees and including 11 other BBRF grantees, Scientific Council members and prize winners, demonstrated the approach using a potential drug to treat anhedonia—the inability to experience or seek pleasure—which is seen in a number of psychiatric disorders including depression, anxiety, and PTSD.
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A story about the research of Dr. Kristen Brennand, which 20 years ago might have sounded like science fiction: taking skin or blood cells harmlessly sampled from psychiatric patients, reprogramming them to a stem-cell-like state, and then directing them to redevelop in culture dishes as brain cells. This technology is enabling scientists to observe pathology as it emerges in cells that bear patients’ precise genetic sequence. It’s especially valuable in illnesses like schizophrenia and autism that have deep genetic roots which have been linked to abnormalities that may begin at the dawn of life, when the brain is just beginning to form.
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"A research career is all about a path. And for me, the path really started with BBRF.”
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Deanna Barch, Ph.D., a much honored research scientist who now chairs the department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, did not take long in life to discover her passion.
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