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Training Outlook in Psychiatry

Studying schizophrenia in the post-genomic era: perspectives from the 2016 summer Banbury Workshop at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Molecular Psychiatry volume 22, pages 2–3 (2017)Cite this article

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Schizophrenia and related psychiatric disorders present a major social burden. Mechanistic understanding of the disease pathology remains underdeveloped, and current medications are associated with limited efficacy or significant side effects. Despite much research over the last decades, knowledge from basic science has not translated effectively into the development of new medications. This dilemma is frequently referred to as crossing the ‘Valley of Death’.1 Indeed, certain pharmaceutical companies have recently decreased their investment in psychiatric disorders or withdrawn from the sector altogether. Nevertheless, with the recent advances in human genetics and basic neuroscience, we are hopeful that better therapeutics based on mechanistic insights will be accessible to patients in the near future. For these reasons, it is now crucial to foster young generations of both MD and PhD researchers who will drive a wide range of scientific progress in psychiatry from bench to bedside through interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches.

The major theme of the 2016 summer course was ‘Post-genomic approaches’.2, 3 For the past decade, worldwide collaboration within psychiatric genetics has advanced dramatically, including a landmark report identifying genetic loci that contribute to schizophrenia.4 Nonetheless, with the exception of one promising report that suggests the involvement of complement C4 in schizophrenia,5 there has been little biological and translational work that utilizes this genomic information. To overcome this dilemma and project a brighter future, two points were actively discussed in the meeting:

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Acknowledgements

We thank Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Stanley Foundation for major support, as well as the Leona M and Harry B Helmsley Charitable Trust and Howard Hughes Medical Institute for stipend assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    K Delevich

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA

    A Abi-Dargham

  3. Neuroscience & Mental Health Research Institute, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    J Hall

  4. Department of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    A Sawa

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  1. K Delevich
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  2. A Abi-Dargham
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  4. A Sawa
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Correspondence to A Sawa.

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Delevich, K., Abi-Dargham, A., Hall, J. et al. Studying schizophrenia in the post-genomic era: perspectives from the 2016 summer Banbury Workshop at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Mol Psychiatry 22, 2–3 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2016.197

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