Grant Recipients
International Bipolar Foundation Announces 2009 Community Grant Recipient
(From left to right) Tom Kelly Exec. Dir, Muffy Walker, President, Supervisor Bill Horn, Interfaith Community Services, Executive Staff
International Bipolar Foundation is proud to announce this year’s $10,000.00 dollar community grant recipient, Interfaith Community Services “Fairweather Lodge” Program. The first in California, Interfaith’s Fairweather lodge provides permanent housing and employment to adults with mental illness. The Fairweather lodge recovery model encourages independence and reduces hospitalization among residents. Compared with over 70 lodges nationwide, Interfaith’s two Fairweather lodges rank among the nations’ premier lodges as rated by the coalition of Community Living, exceeding benchmark standards.
International Bipolar Foundation 2008 Research Grant Recipients
Dr. Robert Beech and Dr. IIyas Singec are the 2008 recipients of two $50,000 research prizes offered by the International Bipolar Foundation. The funded proposals cover different ends of the spectrum of research on bipolar disorder, from clinical to basic research. The information derived from both studies will help in our quest to understand the causes of bipolar disorder and to identify the optimal medications for patients.
Robert Beech MD., Ph.D., an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University and Janine Leffert, Research Assistant, will seek to determine whether the transcriptional profiling of circulating blood cells can predict responses of bipolar patients to lithium therapy. Results from this study will hopefully lead to the development of diagnostic tests that can predict or monitor response to treatment with lithium, greatly improving the risk/benefit ratio for patients treated with lithium. In addition, better understanding of the molecular pathways associated with treatment response could lead to the development of new therapeutic agents specifically targeting these pathways.
Illyas Singec MD, Ph.D. is a research scientist and the director of the Induced Pluripotent Somatic Cell (iPSC) program within the Stem Cell Research Center at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research. He will be mentored by Dr. Evan Snyder; Director of the Stem Cell Research Center. Dr. Singec’s proposal seeks to establish stem cells using IPS technology from individuals affected with bipolar disorder and to differentiate these pluripotent cells into neurons for functional studies. This approach will allow for the study of bipolar disorder in a unique and comprehensive way by directly comparing functional brain cells of patients with bipolar disorder to individuals without neurological and psychiatric diseases. This will serve as a powerful platform technology and will facilitate the development of potential new therapies.
International Bipolar Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to eliminate Bipolar Disorder through the advancement of research; to provide and enhance care and support services for all affected; and to erase associated stigma through public education.
