Research and Mentoring on Integrating Psychiatric Genetics and Neuroscience

描述（由申请人提供）：这个面向患者研究的中期研究者奖将允许首席研究者扩展他的指导，职业发展，以及对面向患者的精神病学遗传学和神经科学的整合研究。首席研究员是精神病学遗传学和临床研究领域的资深临床科学家。该应用程序包括三个组成部分：1)一个指导计划，旨在提高首席研究员在精神病学遗传学和神经科学方面指导年轻研究人员的能力；2)职业发展计划，旨在扩大首席研究员在遗传学和神经影像学整合方面的专业知识；3)利用首席研究员现有的关于精神疾病的遗传、行为和神经基础及其与大脑结构和功能正常变化的关系的研究计划。首席研究员在遗传、临床和流行病学研究领域指导和培养实习生和初级教员方面有着丰富的记录。该奖项将为首席研究员提供受保护的时间，以扩大和加强这些努力。指导计划利用他目前的指导活动和众多合作研究项目，为新一代研究人员开发职业发展道路，这些研究人员能够在以患者为导向的遗传学和神经科学的界面上整合尖端方法。学员将获得以患者为导向的研究实践经验，并将发展自己独立的研究方向。MGH的临床和转化研究资源以及更广泛的哈佛医学院社区将为学员提供丰富的培训环境。该应用程序的新研究部分将包括对大脑表型的全基因组分析，以检查焦虑症的遗传和神经结构。该申请旨在解决NIMH战略计划确定的目标，即推动对精神障碍原因的研究，以及国家咨询精神健康委员会研究培训工作组扩大对有能力进行跨学科研究以实现这些目标的年轻研究人员的指导。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This Mid-Career Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research will permit the Principal Investigator to expand his mentorship, career development, and research on the integration of patient-oriented psychiatric genetics and neuroscience. The Principal Investigator is an established clinician-scientist in psychiatric genetics and clinical research. This application includes three components: 1) a mentoring plan designed to enhance the Principal Investigator's ability to mentor young investigators in psychiatric genetics and neuroscience; 2) a career development plan designed to expand the Principal Investigator's expertise in the integration of genetics and neuroimaging; and 3) a research plan that leverages the Principal Investigator's existing investigations on the genetic, behavioral and neural basis of psychiatric disorders and their relationship to normal variation in brain structure and function. The Principal Investigator has a substantial track record of mentoring and cultivating trainees and junior faculty in the area of genetic, clinical and epidemiologic research. This award would provide protected time for the Principal Investigator to expand and enhance these efforts. The mentoring plan capitalizes on his current mentoring activities and numerous collaborative research projects to develop a career development path for a new generation of investigators capable of integrating cutting-edge methods at the interface of patient-oriented genetics and neuroscience. Mentees will gain hands-on experience in patient-oriented research and will develop their own independent research directions. The clinical and translational research resources at MGH and the broader Harvard Medical School community will provide a rich training environment for mentees. The new research component of the application will include genomewide analyses of brain phenotypes to examine the genetic and neural architecture of anxiety disorders. This application was designed to address objectives identified by NIMH's Strategic Plan to fuel research on the causes of mental disorders and the National Advisory Mental Health Council Workgroup on Research Training to expand mentoring of young investigators capable of conducting the interdisciplinary research needed to achieve those objectives. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Recent advances in genetics and neuroscience have created unprecedented opportunities to unravel the causes of mental illness and ameliorate the public health burden and suffering they incur. This application for a Midcareer Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research will allow Dr. Jordan Smoller to enhance his research and mentorship of young scientists to bring together genetics and brain imaging in the service of discovering the causes of mental illness.