NUI Galway has been awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant of almost €1.5 million over five years from Horizon 2020’s European Research Council, to identify a new biological target for new treatment development of schizophrenia.
The research team, led by Gary Donohoe, Professor of Psychology at NUI Galway, seeks to understand how immune response might directly affect aspects of social interaction causing disability. The study will be funded over five years enabling them to develop their research study, which involves the team looking at whether problems with ‘social thinking’ in schizophrenia can be explained by an abnormal immune response that is caused by genetic risk factors and moderated by early social environment.
The research focuses on people aged 18-60 who suffer from psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, which is one of the top five causes of years lived with disability worldwide. There is currently a drought of new medicines to adequately address this disability and all current drugs only target one mechanism (neurotransmitters ) with limited effectiveness. This project seeks to identify a new biological target for new treatment development.
Professor Gary Donohoe from the School of Psychology at NUI Galway, said: “This funding award will be pivotal to establishing our program of research in NUI Galway. The team, which will include two Postdoctoral researchers, two PhD students, and two Research Nurses, will involve research investigators from NUI Galway (Dr Derek Morris, Professor Colm McDonald, Professor John Kelly, and Dr Declan McKernan ), as well as other research leaders both nationally and internationally. The award will allow the team to focus on immune based causes of schizophrenia for the next five years and ask questions that we believe are important in addressing disability related to serious mental health disorders.”
Six researchers in Irish universities are amongst 291 top class researchers across Europe awarded the Starting Grants, with the prestigious awards to the Irish based researchers worth a combined total of almost €9 million.
Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, said: “We need to keep our most talented researchers in Europe while attracting the new and diverse perspectives of top researchers from elsewhere in the world. These grants ensure many of the world’s most exciting ideas are developed right here: giving researchers and scientists the freedom and security to pursue their careers and ambitions on our continent.”
The Starting Grants are awarded to early-career, up-and-coming research leaders to support them in building their own research teams to pursue their best ideas at the frontiers of knowledge.
