Page 3 - CIBERSAM2016-ENG

Eduard Vieta, Scientific Director
Scientific Director’s Presentation
True to our annual appointment to render accounts of the work done by the CIBERSAM, and as its new scientific director, I am very pleased to be presenting the 2016 report, which compiles the results of the hard work done in research and innovation at our centre, leading translational biomedical research
into mental health in Spain. I am not going to use this space to highlight the large number of scientific publications, the percentage of cooperative projects, the bibliometric impact or any of the excellence indicators given in the document. What really matters and justifies the social effort of assigning public funds, and what motivates the members of CIBERSAM is to attain tangible progress in the understanding, the diagnosis and the treatment of mental disorders. So, without any wish to understate the many pieces of scientific work produced over 2016, I would like to stress certain clear scientific progress with direct application at the patient’s bedside. For example, CIBERSAM and the international ConLiGen consortium have identified a zone of the genome which is associated with a good response to treatment with lithium in bipolar disorder. This discovery, published in The Lancet, opens a gateway to personalised medicine for this illness and identifies a possible therapeutic target for new treatments. Another possible therapeutic target, in this case for schizophrenia, could be protein C4, which may be involved in the loss of synapsis observed in these patients, as is also indicated by CIBERSAM researchers in Nature. Our centre has also
led the development of innovative strategies using RNA interference for studying the physiopathology of major depressive disorder, which could result in new mechanisms for action of anti-depression treatments. And, also in depression, CIBERSAM has carried out a pioneering clinical trial in psychosocial prevention
of this disorder in primary care. Young people are also a population of special interest for our centre, as
we are committed to early intervention and prevention, and we have for this reason analysed the effects
of antipsychotic medication on weight gain and hormones in children and adolescents. CIBERSAM has also led significant progress in such pathologies as autism, attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity, obsessive-compulsive disorder and personality disorders. The strategic plan for the coming years (2017- 2019) puts special stress on placing the patient at the centre of CIBERSAM’s work. One example of this is that in 2016 an international consensus document led by CIBERSAM researchers was published, which commits all the world’s Biological Psychiatric Societies to a more human and evidence-based approach
of the episodes of agitation, with the ultimate aim of saving lives and preventing involuntary mechanical restraint as far as possible. Lastly, European projects focussing on personalised mental health medicine such as PRISM and RADAR have been obtained which, along with the project for cohorts of first psychotic episodes and projects financed by North American agencies, guarantee a bright future for the coming years. Our platforms and our exclusive inter-university master course will unquestionably make a contribution to consolidating the opportunities offered us by the new strategic plan and the determined wish to contribute to better mental health for our citizens, by means of excellence in translational and collaborative research.
SAM
Presentation 3