Looking Ahead

Tell us about the progress the Depression Center has made during the past four years

The center doubled its federal research funding despite cutbacks in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget, perhaps because we were the first, and remain the only, depression center supported by the NIH National Center for Research Resources.

Wonderful support from generous donors enabled us to add two endowed professorships. The work done by Dr. Melvin McInnis (Thomas B. and Nancy Upjohn Woodworth Professorship in Bipolar Disorder and Depression) and Dr. Jon-Kar Zubieta (Phil F. Jenkins Research Professorship in Depression) is world-leading. Both are international contributors to their respective fields of genetics and neuroimaging.

Improved clinical outcomes and eventual prevention remain the ultimate goals of the center. We have established several programs that are nationally unique to help achieve these goals. To assist more of the 15 to 20 percent of pregnant women who struggle with depression, and to learn what happens to new infants when mothers have depression or bipolar disorder, we now work with the Women’s Health Center on a routine basis. We have screened more than 11,000 pregnant women to identify those with depression. This is an innovative way to “find the disorders earlier.” At the other end of the spectrum, the Noble Foundation gave us a gift that enabled us to open a Treatment Resistant Depression program. This helped the center establish a new neuromodulation program to coordinate the study and use of three exciting new treatment strategies (vagus nerve stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation and deep brain stimulation). With support from Mrs. Wally Prechter, we opened the Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Genetic Repository. We are partnering with Johns Hopkins, Stanford and Cornell in what is perhaps the first large, private genetic repository in the country. In the public policy arena, we are working with the National Football League Players Association to study and help depression and other problems associated with retirements and transitions from the League.

The beautiful new Rachel Upjohn Building opened in October 2006. The Depression Center and Ambulatory Psychiatry programs have a stunning home — one that integrates cutting-edge research, expert clinical care, education for a new generation and initiatives in public policy. The center’s design, encouraged by the NIH funding, innately fosters multidisciplinary collaborations.