ATLANTA, US; LONDON, UK -- Through a unique partnership among academia, industry, and government, a team of scientists from Emory University School of Medicine, GlaxoSmithKine (GSK), and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) will work together to accelerate the development of drugs to treat depression and other mood disorders. The new venture, funded through a $4.9 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health, is one of three new national NIH (NIMH and NIDA)-supported National Cooperative Drug Discovery Groups.

The "Emory-GSK-NIMH Collaborative Mood Disorders Initiative" will join the expertise of three complementary research groups: the Emory University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at NIMH, and the Center for Excellence for Drug Discovery in Psychiatry at GlaxoSmithKline. The two major goals of the new venture will be the development of innovative new models for basic and clinical research in mood disorders, and the intensive scrutiny of novel GSK antidepressant candidates in pre-clinical and clinical studies.

Scientists at NIMH's own laboratories in Bethesda, MD, led by Dennis S. Charney, MD, will develop clinical models to assess novel antidepressants. Emory School of Medicine faculty including Michael Davis, PhD, Robert Woodruff professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and Andrew H. Miller, MD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, will develop preclinical models of fear, anxiety, and depression. In collaboration with scientists at GSK, they will test novel antidepressant candidates already under development by the pharmaceutical company as well as newly discovered candidates.

"By joining Emory's longstanding and groundbreaking research programs in depression and mood disorders with the highly successful programs at NIMH and the novel drug development program at GlaxoSmithKline, we hope to better ser
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Contact: Holly Korschun
hkorsch@emory.edu
404-727-3990
Emory University Health Sciences Center
1-Dec-2003

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