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 Press Release 
For immediate release for Schizophrenia Research $250,000 grant will support genetic research by Eva S. Anton, Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine The NARSAD Staglin Award, now in its second year, is earmarked for an early-career scientist whose research is uncovering the causes of schizophrenia and leading to improved treatments for this devastating brain disorder. The award is donated to NARSAD by Shari and Garen Staglin, who host an annual music festival at their Napa Valley, California, vineyard to raise funds for mental-health research. “We feel that genetics is the key to at least half the puzzle of schizophrenia and other brain disorders, and are excited about Dr. Anton’s discoveries concerning the role that the gene neuregulin-1 plays in the developing brain,” said Shari Staglin. “Dr. Anton has proposed a series of experiments to help us understand how this gene and its effects on cell migration relate to the basic causes of schizophrenia,” explained Daniel R. Weinberger, M.D., director of the Genes, Cognition and Psychosis Program at the National Institute of Mental Health and a member of NARSAD’s Scientific Council who heads the Staglin Award selection committee. A variety of studies over the past several years by Dr. Anton and others have pointed to neuregulin as one of the strongest candidate genes for the development of schizophrenia. The research that Dr. Anton will conduct with the NARSAD Staglin Award will help shed light on how this gene, with its influence over the growth, placement and function of neurons in the developing brain, could lead to defects in neural circuitry and cause a severe brain disorder such as schizophrenia. “The NARSAD Staglin award will enable us to take novel approaches to understand the genetic basis of changes in neuronal fate, placement and circuitry in the developing brain that leads to schizophrenia,” said Dr. Anton. “This grant gives us the opportunity to explore new directions and test innovative ideas on how dysfunction of neuregulin, as well as other relevant neurodevelopmental pathways, may cause the development of schizophrenia.” Schizophrenia affects 1 percent of the world’s population, typically emerging in late adolescence or early adulthood and lasting a lifetime. It is considered the most complex of brain disorders by neuroscientists, and discovering its causes and cure is among the greatest challenges facing the field of mental health research. In recommending Dr. Anton for the NARSAD Staglin Award, William M. Snider, M.D., director of the Neuroscience Center at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, wrote: “The field of neural development has arrived at the point where genetic tools can unravel even very complex phenomena in the nervous system, including assembly of the cerebral cortex. However, it is challenging to find individuals who are fully versed in genetics and molecular biology and at the same time are expert in the techniques necessary to study brain development. Dr. Anton has the requisite expertise… and has amply demonstrated the power of this integrated approach…”  Dr. Anton received his Ph.D. from Duke University and did postdoctoral studies at Yale University School of Medicine. In 2002, he joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, where he is a member of the Neuroscience Center and the department of cell and molecular physiology. In 2005, he received a Young Investigator Award from NARSAD in support of his research. For more information about the Staglin Family Music Festival for Mental Health, visit www.staglinfamily.com. |
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