USING GENETICS TO IMPROVE PSYCHIATRIC HEALTH

Overall Abstract The field of psychiatric genetics has experienced drastic advances over the past decade. Despite this progress, comparatively few studies have addressed how we will use these discoveries to improve human health. In this symposium, we bring together leaders from across the field of psychiatric genetics to spotlight efforts to translate genomic findings into improvements in psychiatric health, and to discuss the ethical and logistical challenges associated with the clinical application of psychiatric genomics. Danielle Dick, Ph.D. will present results from an implementation mapping study, in which interviews were conducted with hospital administrators and providers to study barriers and facilitators of the integration of psychiatric genetic findings including polygenic scores into clinical settings, and a randomized controlled trial evaluating an on-line personalized addiction risk platform that integrates genomic, behavioral, and environmental risk factors. Lora Liharska, Ph.D., will present a strategy for translating human genetic discoveries into new therapies for schizophrenia. His talk will describe work integrating genotype-driven recruitment from large healthcare biobanks, family-based validation of risk variants, molecular studies in patient-derived neurons, and preclinical testing of gene-based treatments. As a proof of concept, Dr. Charney will discuss recent findings on GRIA3, an AMPA receptor gene implicated in schizophrenia, and the development of a corresponding mRNA therapy currently advancing toward first-in-human evaluation. Christel Middeldorp, MD, PhD will discuss how to implement a family based approach in child and adolescent as well as adult mental health services. Following the genetics of mental disorders, involving parents and children respectively provides an opportunity for prevention and/or optimising treatment. Despite this, mental health care remains mostly individually focused. She will discuss what is necessary to change the system toward more family focused care. Jordan Smoller, M.D. will speak about the opportunities and challenges for clinical applications of polygenic scores (PGS). He will discuss how the eMERGE network has been implementing the return of PGS for other diseases, what some of the challenges are in terms of communication and contextualization, and the need for implementation science work in this area. J9 Austin, Ph.D., MSc will serve as the discussant. Dr. Austin started the world’s first Psychiatric Genetic Counseling practice and currently leads the Translational Genetics Research Collaborative, aimed at conducting research that applies a justice-oriented approach to advancing personalized medicine. Accordingly, they have been thinking about the use of genetic information about psychiatric conditions in clinical settings for many years. Through this symposium, we aim to inspire conversation about how, as a field, psychiatric genetics can expand beyond research discoveries to also build the foundation for translating our findings into improvements in human health.