1/6 people have reported depression or anxiety in the last year
1/3 people experience symptoms in their lifetime
Only 50% of people respond well to existing treatments
I am interested to know if it's nature vs nurture that has caused my issues... Thank you for researching these links and hopefully providing answers that lead to better mental health help.
As someone who's struggled with their own mental health, I am fully supporting the GLAD Study and its ambitions to find effective treatments that are more targeted. I want to encourage as many as possible to sign up and contribute to the fantastic outcomes it will hopefully achieve for mental health developments.
The Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression (GLAD) Study, led by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Mental Health BioResource and researchers at King's College London (KCL), in collaboration with researchers at Queen's University Belfast, University of Edinburgh, and Cardiff University, is a project set up to support studies exploring risk factors for depression and/or anxiety.
Gerome is the overall Principal Investigator of the GLAD Study and focusses on depression within GLAD. His research interest is on the biological basis of common mental health disorders, particularly genetic links in mood disorders, and eating disorders, but also how we can find new therapeutics using genetic data. Prof Breen is chair of the overall NIHR Mental Health BioResource, and leads a biobanking and genomics/biomarker core facility at KCL. You can read more about Prof Breen’s research in the link below.
Thalia is the co-lead and overall co-Principal Investigator for the GLAD Study and focuses on anxiety disorders within GLAD. She runs the EDIT Lab at King's College London, a group of researchers focusing on what factors may influence why people respond differently to life’s experiences. Specifically, she is interested in exploring which psychological treatments work best for different people and whether their genetics may play a part in how people respond. You can read more about Prof Eley’s past research below.
Professor Matthew Hotopf CBE is Executive Dean of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London. Professor Hotopf is a Professor of General Hospital Psychiatry, a consultant liaison psychiatrist, and former Director of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre from 2014-2023. He has broad research interests including using epidemiological and novel mobile health methods to interrogate the relationship between mental and physical health.
Gursharan is the manager at the NIHR BioResource Centre Maudsley. She has been involved in mental health research for several years, working in the UK and the USA. She is interested in the overlap between the various mental health disorders and their common and distinct pathways at the molecular level. She is also interested in mental health in minoritised ethnic groups.
Chérie is the Principal Investigator in Northern Ireland. She is a Professor of Psychological Trauma and Mental Health in the School of Psychology at Queen's University Belfast. Chérie is also the Research Director for the School of Psychology and the Director of the Research Centre for Stress Trauma and Related Conditions (STARC) at Queen's University Belfast. Chérie’s primary research interests are in trauma and mental health, with a focus on diagnostic nosology, predictors of risk and resilience, and long-term trajectories of mental health outcomes.
Joni is the Statistical Genetics Lead of the GLAD Study, and advises on the cleaning and analysis of the genetic data. His work looks for changes in DNA that are found more often in people affected by common mental disorders than in people who are unaffected. He is interested in how these DNA changes affect the biology of the brain, and how the environments of people with common mental disorders alter the effects of these DNA changes.
Ian is the Principal Investigator in Wales. He is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences at Cardiff University. He is also an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist in Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust. His research interests relate to bipolar spectrum disorders and in particular the relationship of mood disorders to childbirth.
Andrew is the Principal Investigator in Scotland. He is a Professor of Biological Psychiatry at the Division of Psychiatry, Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. He leads the Generation Scotland Expert Working Group for Psychiatric Disorders and co-chairs the Major Depressive Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC).
Evangelos is a Consultant Psychiatrist and a Senior Clinical Research Fellow at KCL. Dr Vassos is investigating genetic and environmental underpinnings of psychosis and mood disorders. His current work is focusing on the development and validation of risk estimation models for psychosis based on genetic and environmental risk factors. He has experience in genome-wide association studies, polygenic score analysis, genetic epidemiology studies and the development of novel meta-analysis methods.
David is a Consultant Psychiatrist in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust and a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience. Currently, he leads a national outpatient and residential unit service in the NHS for individuals with severe treatment refractory Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Body Dysmorphic Disorder. He has also carried out research into body dysmorphic disorder, OCD, emetophobia, and chronotherapy as an intervention for depression.
