Disease to Dish: A Closer Look at the Accelerator Program for Discovery in Brain Disorders using Stem Cells (ADBS) Program
This virtual walkthrough exhibited how doctors and researchers at the Accelerator Program for Discovery in Brain Disorders using Stem Cells (ADBS) programme strive to understand the intricacies of psychiatric disorders. The event saw them take us through the journey of a patient with a psychiatric disorder, right from the initial diagnosis to their cells being experimented upon in order to understand the basis of these disorders.
About the Researcher
Anushka Banerjee is a Junior Research Fellow at the Accelerator Program for Discovery in Brain Disorders using Stem Cells (ADBS) Lab, NIMHANS. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in Medical Biotechnology and a masters’ degree in Molecular Medicine. She is interested in science communication and is an advocate for mental health awareness and outreach.
About the Clinician Scientist
Biju Viswanath is an additional professor of psychiatry at NIMHANS. He is a physician-scientist with a Ph.D. in the area of cellular models for psychiatry. He has recently been awarded an Intermediate Fellowship of the DBT-Wellcome India Alliance, and is a coordinating investigator of the Accelerator Program for Discovery in Brain Disorders using Stem Cells (ADBS). His areas of interest include the biological basis of drug response in psychiatry, especially lithium in bipolar disorder.
About the Psychiatrist
John P John is a Professor of Psychiatry at NIMHANS. A clinician by training and a researcher at heart, John has extensive experience in the use of multimodal neuroimaging to study the brain in neuropsychiatric conditions. He is the faculty in-charge of Multimodal Brain Image Analysis Laboratory (MBIAL), Centre for Brain Mapping (CBM), and the ADBS Neuroimaging Centre (ANC) and is the co-investigator in charge of the neuroimaging wing of the ADBS project. John's clinical specialisation is general adult psychiatry while his research interests are in linking genetics, multiple imaging modalities, and computational approaches to understand the neurobiology and response to treatment in neuropsychiatric conditions.
About the Geneticist
Meera Purushottam is senior geneticist at the Molecular Genetics Laboratory at NIMHANS, where the focus has been the genetic basis and correlates of psychiatric and neurological diseases. Her work has focused on trying to understand the influence of gene variants on disease presentation and response to drugs. Cells derived from patients have been used to unravel disease mechanisms better, while whole exome studies have helped to identify rare risk variants in severe mental illness in patients. She is in charge of genetic testing for early onset neuromuscular and late onset movement disorders.
About the Psychiatrist
Pravesh Parekh is the Senior Scientific Officer at the ADBS Neuroimaging Centre. He obtained his PhD from the Department of Psychiatry at NIMHANS. Trained as a biotechnologist, his PhD work was on the use of machine learning using multimodal neuroimaging data to classify patients with schizophrenia from healthy subjects. His research interest is in the use of machine learning and other modelling techniques on imaging and genetic data to understand why certain people develop psychiatric illnesses while others do not.
About the Neuroscientist
Reeteka Sud is a neuroscientist. She is the Research Coordinator of ADBS lab at NIMHANS, Bangalore. Her research interests include using stem cell models to understand psychiatric disorders. She is passionate about science communication, and has contributed articles to several news outlets. She is also one of the founding members of ISRC (Indian Scientists’ Response to COVID-19), and coordinator of the Bangalore chapter of the international organisation, 500WS (500 Women Scientists).
About the Clinician Scientist
Sowmya S is a Clinician Scientist and Assistant Professor at the ADBS project, Department of Psychiatry, NIMHANS. She completed her MD in psychiatry from the NIMHANS. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Psychiatry and was awarded the prestigious Wellcome Trust DBT research training fellowship for clinicians. Her areas of interest include biological psychiatry, translational psychiatry, schizophrenia, and brain stimulation. She is keen on working towards application of translational research in clinical practice for the improvement of patient care.
About the Clinician Scientist
Srinivas Balachander is a psychiatrist currently working as an Assistant Professor/Clinician Scientist in the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Clinic, Department of Psychiatry at NIMHANS. He completed his psychiatry residency training from PGIMER, Chandigarh and his post-doctoral fellowship in OCD and related disorders from NIMHANS. He has experience working with individuals with OCD who have complex presentations such as treatment resistance and comorbidities.
About the Neurodevelopmental Biologist
Yojet Sharma is a PhD student inRaghu Padinjat’s lab at NCBS-TIFR, Bangalore. He obtained his BSc in physics, followed by an MSc in biophysics. At present, his PhD project involves modelling the brain development aspect of Lowe Syndrome using patient derived stem cells. To him, science is about humility, patience and discovery.