Rima Kaddurah-Daouk, Ph.D.

Overall Research Goals:

My research over the past decade has focused on scaling up biochemical knowledge for gaining a deeper understanding of the molecular basis of neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders and finding ways to optimize their treatment. I have made seminal contributions to the development of the metabolomics field and applications of metabolomics for the study of drug effects, establishing foundations for “Pharmacometabolomics”, a discipline that complements and informs pharmacogenomics and enables Precision Medicine initiatives. Over the next five years, I will continue to expand on these directions and applications of a systems biochemical approach, hoping to contribute in significant ways to President Obama’s Alzheimer’s Initiative as well as to Precision Medicine national and global initiatives. At the heart of my research is a deeper understanding of neuropsychiatric disease mechanisms, disease heterogeneity, and optimization of treatment for patients based on genotype, metabotype, microbiome activity and environmental influences and strategies for personalizing and optimizing treatment outcomes.

Biographical History and Educational Background:

Dr. Kaddurah-Daouk is a Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, and holds an adjunct professorship at Mayo Clinic Pharmacology. She is a graduate of the American University of Beirut Department of Biochemistry with subsequent training at Johns Hopkins (worked with Nobel Laureate Hamilton Smith), Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has been a seminal force in the development of applications for metabolomics in the medical field. She co-founded the Metabolomics Society and served more than four years as its founding president, helping create a presence and voice for an interactive metabolomics community (currently close to 1000 members). She helped establish Metabolomics, a leading journal for the field. She co-founded Metabolon, a leading biotechnology company for applications in metabolomics, and two other biotechnology companies.

With significant NIH funding (more than $70 million over the past 15 years), she established and leads several large consortia (more than 120 scientists from over 30 academic institutions). The NIMH-funded Mood Disorder Precision Medicine Consortium (MDPMC) seeks to optimize treatment outcomes in depression (in partnership with the Mayo Clinic, Emory, and several other institutions). The Alzheimer’s Disease Metabolomics Consortium (ADMC), funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, is one of six consortia under the Accelerating Medicines Partnership for Treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease (AMP-AD) and Molecular Mechanisms of the Vascular Etiology of Alzheimer’s Disease (M²OVE-AD) initiatives set to respond to President Obama’s challenge: “National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease” to treat or prevent Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by 2025. The initiative involves more than 60 scientists from over 20 academic institutions. Recently she established the Alzheimer Gut Microbiome Project, an initiative that includes leadership from the gut microbiome, AD, depression and metabolomics fields with a mission to define a possible role for gut microbiome in AD and other neuropsychiatric diseases. The NIA committed over $27 million to fund this project, which includes Duke, UC San Diego, Rush, Caltech, and many other academic institutions. Earlier work funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) through the Pharmacometabolomics Research Network established foundations for a new field “Pharmacometabolomics”, which parallels and informs pharmacogenomics and in which metabolic profiles of individuals are used to inform about treatment outcomes. This consortium established foundations for the use of metabolomics in large precision medicine initiatives. Dr. Kaddurah-Daouk leads several initiatives and task groups in Precision Medicine.

She has over 130 peer reviewed scientific publications, leads in a large number of active NIH grants (including 3 RO1s, U19, U01, four supplements), and has more than 60 patents or patent applications. In 2018, she ranked as the highest funded researcher in departments of psychiatry nationally (Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research) and continues to be among the top funded researchers in the field of psychiatry (http://www.brimr.org/NIH_Awards/2018/NIH_Awards_2018.htm).

Academic Achievements and Scholarship:

Areas of research in which I have made significant contributions include:

1)     The study of metabolic impairments in neuropsychiatric diseases including depression, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease.

2)     Metabolomics technologies and applications for the study of human disease and treatment outcomes; helped create a community of metabolomics researchers.

3)     Established foundations for “Pharmacometabolomics”, a new field for the application of metabolomics for the study of drug effects and variation of response to treatment as enabling tools for precision medicine. Contributed to the rapidly growing field of “Quantitative and Systems Pharmacology” by linking the metabolome and genome and drug response.

4)     Made several discoveries on the role of the gut microbiome in neuropsychiatric diseases and response to treatment.

5)     Helped move basic research from bench to clinic with discoveries concerning creatine kinase and energy impairment in neurodegenerative diseases.