For millions of people every year, depression is not just an illness but a grueling pattern: anguish, medications, failure, repeat.
- By ANNA LAMB | Harvard Gazette
Supported by a major grant from the nonprofit Wellcome Leap, two Harvard Medical School scientists want to break that pattern, each by his own path.
David Walt, the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Bioinspired Engineering at HMS and professor of pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, is operating at a microscopic level, observing cell abnormalities that may contribute to depression.
Diego Pizzagalli, HMS professor of psychiatry at McLean Hospital, is taking a bigger-picture approach, using MRIs and other methods to identify potential treatments by tracking activity in key brain regions.
Their common aim is to speed the path from diagnosis to an effective medication for the individual patient.
