New York City-based Columbia University has launched a new research hub for psychiatry and mental health made possible by a $75 million donation from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for Precision Psychiatry & Mental Health, named for its donor, is a joint effort of the department of psychiatry at the university's Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and its Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, according to an April 25 news release from the university.
The center will also work with experts from the New York Genome Center and the New York State Office of Mental Health. Researchers will accumulate massive datasets of genomic sequences and longitudinal medical records in order to prevent, diagnose and develop treatment for mental illnesses.
"The significant progress we have made in caring for our physical health in recent decades is apparent, but just as clear is the fact that we have left behind our mental health," Andreas Dracopoulos, SNF co-president, said in the release. "All of us at SNF are proud to support the doctors, scientists, and mental health professionals at Columbia in bringing together deep expertise with an equally deep sense of humanity to address one of the most critical issues of our time."
The research facility will be co-directed by Sander Markx, MD, assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Vagelos and director of the Center for Precision Neuropsychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute; Steven Kushner, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry at Vagelos and a principal investigator at the New York State Psychiatric Institute; and Joseph Gogos, MD, PhD, professor of physiology and cellular biophysics, neuroscience and psychiatry at Vagelos and a principal investigator at Zuckerman.