Dr. Mark A. Frye, M.D., has a research focus on genomics, brain imaging, and neuroendocrinology of mood disorders and alcoholism, complementing his clinical interests in bipolar disorder, depression, and alcoholism. Dr. Frye seeks to uncover the underpinning mechanisms of bipolar disorder through genomic studies using the Mayo Clinic Individualized Medicine Biobank for Bipolar Disorder and neuroimaging studies using the Mayo Clinic MRS library.

Dr. Richard Weinshilboum, M.D. studies pharmacogenomics — the role of inheritance and individual variation in DNA sequence or structure in drug response. The goal is to develop safer and more effective drug therapies to treat a wide range of diseases from cancer to depression.His group uses genomic techniques that include GWAS and "next-generation" whole genome DNA sequencing using samples from a large numbers of patients treated with a specific anticancer or antidepressant drug. Sophisticated cell-based functional genomic techniques are used to determine mechanisms responsible for variation in drug response phenotypes.

Dr. Rinaldo is currently interested in the clinical implementation of multivariate pattern recognition software that improves the interpretation of complex profiles of laboratory results. The goal is to integrate all clinically significant results available to diagnose a particular condition in a single score in a manner that is objective, evidence-based, and open to worldwide collaboration and data sharing. He is consulting with the MDPMC to apply these same techniques with metablomics data.

Dr. Ahmed T. Ahmed, M.D., has a research focus on epidemiological, evidence-based, and knowledge synthesis studies. He has an interest in pharmacogenetic and pharmacogenomic-related psychiatric research. In addition, Dr. Ahmed has completed a master’s degree in clinical and translational science and his master’s thesis is studying the pharmacogenomics of SNRI antidepressant response after SSRI treatment failure in major depressive disorder. Currently, he is working on several projects, one of which is “The Right Antidepressant: Pilot Project”.

Dr. Duan Liu, Ph.D. is a pharmacogenomic researcher who studies the inter-individual variability in drug response of antidepressants that are used to treat patients with MDD. He does functional genomic studies to validate the genetic markers or polymorphisms identified in genome-wide association studies (GWAS) for both MDD drug therapy and MDD risk. Dr. Liu also focuses on the pharmacogenomics of breast cancer chemotherapy.

Dr. Drew Neavin’s research is based on identifying genetic variants that may contribute to individual response to antidepressant medication by patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). We merged metabolomic, genomic and clinical data using genome-wide approaches to identify genetic variants that we can then investigate at a molecular level in the laboratory. She is currently investigating three genes identified using these approaches to understand the molecular mechanisms that may contribute to individual responses to antidepressant medication in patients with MDD.

Michelle Skime, MS, CCRP, is the Program Manager of Research Operations for the Department of Psychiatry and Psychology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. Her research interests include mood disorders, alcohol use disorders, pain rehabilitation, pharmacogenomics, MR imaging, and TMS. Michelle is responsible for the oversight of the clinical research coordinators, protocol specialists, laboratory technicians and technologists, as well as providing orientation and guidance to research temporary professionals, clinicians engaged in research, and junior faculty within the department.

Dr. W. Edward Craighead, PhD is a Professor of Psychology and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Emory University School of Medicine. At Emory, he holds the J. Rex Fuqua Chair and is the Director of the Child and Adolescent Mood Program. Over the past three decades, his work has focused on cognitive behavioral models of Major Depression and Bipolar Disorders. Currently, his primary work focuses on differential predictors of response and relapse among depressed patients being treated for the first time.

Dr. Boadie Dunlop, MD is an Associate Professor and Director of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at Emory University School of Medicine. His clinical research is focused on the neurobiology, psychopharmacology, and personalized medicine approaches to major depression, bipolar disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and anxiety disorders. Through the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program he conducts industry-sponsored trials of investigational diagnostic and treatment interventions.

Dr. William M. McDonald, MD, is the JB Fuqua Chair for Late-Life Depression in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. Throughout his career, Dr. McDonald has concentrated research efforts on understanding the neuroanatomy and clinical features of mood disorders such as mania and depression, particularly when these disorders occur late in life.  His research has focused on treatments for severe and refractory depression including neuromodulation treatments such as electroconvulsive therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation.

Helen Mayberg, MD is Professor of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.  Helen S. Mayberg, MD, is a neurologist renowned for her study of brain circuits in depression and for her pioneering deep brain stimulation research, which has been heralded as one of the first hypothesis-driven treatment strategies for a major mental illness. She is the founding Director of Mount Sinai Health System's The Nash Family Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics,  She was formerly the Dorothy Fuqua Chair in Psychiatry Imaging and Therapeutics at Emory University School of Medicine.  Her work integrates multi-modal neuroimaging strategies (PET, sMRI, fMRI, DTI, and EEG) and quantitative behavioral and psychophysiological metrics within experimental clinical trial protocols to define brain mechanisms mediating antidepressant treatments.

Dr. Patricio Riva Posse, MD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. His clinical and research activities focus on treatment-resistant mood disorders. He is member of the electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) group, in the Treatment-Resistant Depression Clinic and is involved in the development of novel therapeutics. He is co-investigator in the investigational protocol of subcallosal cingulate deep brain stimulation (DBS) in Treatment-Resistant Depression in Helen Mayberg's Laboratory.

Dr. Jungho Cha, PhD is an investigator in Helen Mayberg's group at Mt. Sinai.

Director (acting) of the Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (IBIS), Helmholtz
Zentrum München.  Her group studies human chemical individuality and its effects in health, disease, and treatment, metabolome-wide and genome-wide associations, and creates nioinformatic tools and databases for metabolomics data analysis and data interpretation

Dr. Matthias Arnold, PhD is the lead analyst on metabolomics projects at the Helmholtz Zentrum München.  Dr. Arnold specializes in metabolomics as well as the integration with multi-omics into networks. As lead analyst he is involved in the QC and analysis of metabolomic datasets and consults on the analysis plans of other analysts across multiple metabolomics consortia.

Dr. Nevado-Helgado leads the AI team in the TNDR (https://www.psych.ox.ac.uk/research/dementia-research-group) laboratory in the Department of Psychiatry, formed by 10 excellent machine learners and bioinformaticians. Their focus is on the applications of machine learning and bioinformatics to mental health care. He is collaborating with the MDPMC for the application of machine learning to metabolomics-genomics for novel insights into MDD.

Dr. Liu Shi, PhD is a postdoctoral researcher within the Translational Neuroscience and Dementia Research Group. Her interests focus on identifying and validating a group of blood based biomarkers in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients for monitoring disease progress, during which Meso Scale Discovery (MSD) technology will be used.  Prior to joining Oxford, she completed her PhD entitled "Elaboration of protein microarray for the rapid identification and quantification of breast cancer biomarkers" in Ecole Centrale de Lyon (France).

Prof. Oliver Fiehn, PhD has pioneered developments and applications in metabolomics with over 220 publications to date, starting in 1998 as postdoctoral scholar and from 2000 onwards as group leader at the Max-Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam, Germany. Since 2004 he is Professor at the UC Davis Genome Center, overseeing his research laboratory and the satellite core service laboratory in metabolomics research. Since 2012, he serves as Director of the NIH West Coast Metabolomics Center, supervising 35 staff operating 16 mass spectrometers and coordinating activities with three UC Davis satellite labs, including efforts for combined interpretation of genomics and metabolomics data.

Dr. Christopher R Brydges, PhDis a Principal Statistician at the UC Davis Genome Center - Metabolomics

Prof. Brenda Penninx, PhD, is professor of psychiatric epidemiology at the department of Psychiatry of Amsterdam UMC (location VUmc) in Amsterdam (https://psychiatryamsterdam.nl). Since 2004 she leads the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA: www.nesda.nl), a longitudinal study of the course and consequences of depressive and anxiety disorders.

Dr. Yuri Milaneschi is assistant professor at GGZ inGeest and the department of psychiatry Amsterdam UMC/VUmc. After studies and training in clinical psychology in Italy, Yuri Milaneschi (1978)  worked in the field of epidemiology of aging in Italy (2007-2010) and the USA (National Institute of Aging, 2010-2012). He combined these two perspectives in his major research theme: the study, using the tools of epidemiology, of biological pathways that may have a role in the pathophysiology of depression.

Dr. Rick Jansen is assistant professor at Amsterdam UMC/VUmc. His research interests includes the genetics of depression.

Prof. Elisabeth Binder, MD, PhD holds a joint appointment as Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, and as an Associate Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. Her main research interests are the pharmacogenetics of antidepressant drugs as well as gene x environment interactions in mood and anxiety disorders, with a focus on genes regulating the stress hormone response.

Dr. Knauer-Arloth is the Project Group Leader in the Dept. Translational Research in Psychiatry at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry.

Dr. K. Ranga Rama Krishnan, MB, ChB, became the second CEO of the Rush University System for Health in May 2019. He previously was the dean of Rush Medical College from October 2015 to May 2019.  A member of the National Academy of Medicine, Krishnan has received numerous honors and awards, including the Distinguished Scientist Award from the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry; the Edward Strecker Award from the University of Pennsylvania; the research award for mood disorders, 2015, and the research award for geriatric psychiatry 2009, both from the American College of Psychiatry; the Gerald Klerman Award for research in mood disorders from the Depressive and Bipolar Support Alliance, 2002; and the C. Charles Burlingame Award for his lifetime achievements in psychiatric research and education. For his service to Singapore, he received the Public Service Medal from the president of Singapore.