Central Institute of Mental Health

Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy

J5
68159, Mannheim

Website

Project leader

Prof. Dr. Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg
Coordinator and Leader of WP1 Central infrastructure and WP7 Dissemination
Phone: +49 621 1703 2001
Fax: +49 621 1703 2005
E-mail

Project staff

Prof. Dr. Marcella Rietschel
Workpackage leader of WP6 Ethics
Phone: +49 621 1703 6051
E-mail
Emanuel Schwarz, Ph.D
Co-Coordinator and Co-Leader of WP1 Central infrastructure and WP7 Dissemination
Phone: +49 621 1703 6516
E-mail

Institute presentation

The Central Institute of Mental Health (CIMH) is one of Europe’s leading research institutions dedicated to mental health. Its wide-ranging research activities are based on a combination of extensive in- and outpatient programmes with full access to research dedicated, state-of the art magnetic resonance imaging facilities (MRI) of 1.5 and 3 Tesla as well as high-throughput facilities for genotyping and molecular biology. The department of psychiatry and psychotherapy and its 17 research groups focus on the characterization of risk mechanisms for psychiatric illnesses and their translation into novel therapeutic and diagnostic approaches, using structural and functional brain abnormalities and their genetic and environmental determinants as a main approach. CIMH’s Department of Genetic Epidemiology in Psychiatry focusses on identifying genetic and environmental causal factors for mental disorders, with a particular focus on affective, schizophrenia-spectrum, and addiction disorders. The department conducts detailed phenotype characterization of large, internationally collected samples of patients. Genotyping of the DNA of these patients and their relatives is performed in the Department’s fully equipped molecular genetics laboratory.

Prof. Dr. Meyer-Lindenberg is director of the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, chairman of its department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and chair at the University of Heidelberg. Meyer-Lindenberg has worked extensively on neural mechanisms of risk for psychiatric disorders, especially schizophrenia and affective disorders through an innovative approach which combines neuroimaging, genetics and behavioral characterizations to identify specific neural risk mechanisms which can be localized to specific functional networks and genes acting in the CNS. Among other work in the field of “imaging genetics”, his group has contributed first identification of a neural risk mechanism associated with a genome wide significant genetic risk variant related to schizophrenia. He has also characterized neural mechanisms for social risk factors for neuropsychiatric disorders and has developed several of his discoveries into potential biomarkers for antipsychotic medication.

Prof. Dr. Marcella Rietschel is Director of both the Department of Genetic Epidemiology in Psychiatry and the CIMH molecular genetics laboratory at Heidelberg University/Medical Faculty Mannheim. She is a Professor of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and a medical geneticist, and is an expert in all aspects of formal and molecular psychiatric genetics. Her research focus is the search for genetic and environmental risk factors for psychiatric disorders, in particular affective disorders, schizophrenia, and alcohol dependence. A specific emphasis of her work is the refining of phenotype-genotype correlations across diagnostic categories through the application of advanced statistical techniques. Marcella Rietschel has established large collections of data from psychiatric patients and the general population, as well as a biomaterial bank for DNA, plasma, serum, and RNA samples. Her group is among the leading research teams in psychiatric genetics worldwide. Her other research interest is the study of the ethical, legal, and social aspects of psychiatric genetics.

Dr Emanuel Schwarz is a research scientist at the CIMH with significant experience in the discovery of diagnostic and predictive/prognostic biomarkers for psychiatric disorders. He coordinated the statistical analysis for numerous biomarker discovery projects for schizophrenia, affective and autism spectrum disorders. These investigations led to the development and clinical translation of VeriPsychTM, the first ever molecular test to aid in the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London

Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre

16 De Crespigny Park

London, SE5 8AF


Website

Project leader

Prof. Gunter Schumann
Leader of WP4 Pre-symptomatic and early diagnosis
Phone: +44 (0)207 848 5314
Fax: +44 (0)207 848 0940
E-mail

 

Project staff

Prof. Ilina Singh
Professor of Science, Ethics and Society
Phone: +44 (0)207 848 7074
Fax: n.a.
E-mail

Institute presentation

The Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) is a postgraduate medical school associated with the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and is a School of King's College London (KCL) of the University of London. The IOP is the largest academic community in Europe for Psychiatry, Clinical Psychology and Neuroscience and ranks within the top five psychiatric research institutions worldwide. As a partnership between the MRC (Medical Research Council) and the IoP, the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre is a unique multi-disciplinary centre that studies social epidemiology, child and adult psychiatry, developmental psychopathology, development in the family, personality traits, cognitive abilities, statistical genetics, and molecular genetics. This unparalleled approach has inspired and nurtured collaborative research between the different departments within the Institute of Psychiatry and demonstrated its impressive multifaceted expertise.

For WP3 they will contribute three clinical samples comprising over 600 patients to aid in the identification of prognostic marker sets in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

For WP4 they will analyse data from the IMAGEN project (Coordinator G. Schumann) where they have explored intermediate phenotypes of risk for adolescent mental illness based on cognitive, behavioural, clinical, genetic and neuroimaging data of over 2000 adolescents ssessed at age 14, 16 and 19 years (Schumann et al. 2010).

University of Bari "Aldo Moro"

Department of Basic Medical Science, Neuroscience and Sense Organs

Piazza Giulio Cesare, 11

70121, Bari


Website

Project leader

Prof. Alessandro Bertolino, MD, PhD
Phone: +39 080 5478572
Fax: +39 080 5593204
E-mail

Project staff

Dr. Ileana Andriola, MD
Phone: +39 080 5478572
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Dr. Giuseppe Blasi, MD, PhD
Phone: +39-080-5593629
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Dr. Grazia Caforio, MD, PhD
Phone: +39-080-5593173
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Dr. Annabella Di Giorgio, MD, PhD
Phone: +39 080 5478572
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Dr. Tiziana Quarto
Phone: +39 080 5478572
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Leonardo Fazio, PhD
Phone: +39 080 5478572
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Barbara Gelao, PhD
Phone: +39 080 5478572
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Riccarda Lomuscio
Phone: +39 080 5478572
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Rita Masellis
Phone: +39-080-5034710
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Dr. Apostolos Papazacharias, MD, PhD
Phone: +39 080 5478572
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Giulio Pergola, PhD
Phone: +39-080-5593630
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Dr. Antonio Rampino, MD, PhD
Phone: +39-080-5593630
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Raffaella Romano, PhD
Phone: +39 080 5478572
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail
Paolo Taurisano, PhD
Phone: +39 080 5478572
Fax: +39-080-5593204
E-mail

Institute presentation

Prof. Bertolino’s lab is interested in characterizing the genetic mechanisms of susceptibility to schizophrenia, studying gene effects on brain information processing in patients, their siblings, and healthy volunteers. The lab pursues translational projects ranging from gene expression/regulation in cell systems and human brain tissue, to studies of brain function with neuroimaging in living subjects stratified by relevant genotype.

 

UNIBA Third Parties:

- University of Chieti "G. D'Annunzio", Cheti, Italy: Prof. Giancarlo Romani

- University of Udine, Udine, Italy: Dr. Paolo Brambilla, Eleonora Maggioni

Dr. Paolo Brambilla
Phone: n.a.
Fax: n.a.
E-mail
Eleonora Maggioni
Phone: n.a.
Fax: n.a.
E-mail

 

Life & Brain GmbH

Genomics Platform

Sigmund-Freud-Strasse 25

D-53127 Bonn


Website

Project leader

Prof. Dr. Markus Noethen
Phone: +49 (0)228 287 51101
Fax: +49 (0)228 6885 401
E-mail

Project staff

Dr. Franziska Degenhardt
Phone: +49 (0)228 6885 433
Fax: +49 (0)228 6885 401
E-mail
Andreas Forstner
Phone: +49 (0)228 6885 412
Fax: +49 (0)228 6885 401
E-mail
Dr. Stefanie Heilmann
Phone: +49 (0)228 6885 423
Fax: +49 (0)228 6885 401
E-mail
Dipl. Biol. Stefan Herms
Phone: +49 (0)228 6885 411
Fax: +49 (0)228 6885 401
E-mail
Dr. Per Hoffmann
Phone: +49 (0)228 6885 427
Fax: +49 (0)228 6885 401
E-mail
Katrin Kayser
Phone: +49 (0)228 6885 423
Fax: +49 (0)228 6885 401
E-mail
Gunhild van Loon
Phone: +49 (0)228 6885 400
Fax:+49 (0)228 6885 401
E-mail

Institute presentation

Life & Brain GmbH is a biomedical enterprise founded in 2002 by the University of Bonn and the Bonn Medical Center. LB’s mission is to develop new strategies for the diagnosis and therapy of nervous system disorders. As an innovation center in the field of biomedicine, Life & Brain brings together expertise in genomic research, transgenic animals, stem cell biology, and neurocognition to deliver novel products in the health sector. The genomics platform of LB has vast experience in all aspects of disease-gene identification and characterization, such as biobanking, high-throughput genotyping and sequencing, as well as expression and methylation analysis. It uses technologies from various companies including Illumina, Affymetrix, and Sequenom. In recent years, the genomics platform has evolved into one of the leading service providers in the European genomics sector. It has supplied services to a large number of national and international customers among them are leading academic institutions in the genetic analysis of human disease. The service typically includes an extensive quality control with high-quality data delivered to the customers.