Dr. Sangmi Chung Awarded $7.1 Million in Grants to Support Schizophrenia Research
The Research Will Provide Greater Insight on Schizophrenia Risks and Help to Identify Novel Therapeutic Targets
Sangmi Chung, Ph.D., professor of cell biology and anatomy, psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of neurology, has been awarded two grants totaling $7.1 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health’s Institute of Mental Health to support her research into schizophrenia.
“Schizophrenia is a highly heritable neurodevelopmental disorder, but the mechanisms behind how schizophrenia genetic risk loci function is not clear,” said Dr. Chung. “Cortical interneurons are substantially affected in schizophrenia and enriched for schizophrenia heritability during development. This research will help to identify the schizophrenia risk loci that are active in these neurons during development, providing greater insight on schizophrenia risks and help to identify novel therapeutic targets.”
Recruited to New York Medical College in 2017 from Harvard Medical School, Dr. Chung has published 38 papers in top-tier journals, including Nature Neuroscience, Cell Stem Cell, Molecular Psychiatry, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Neuron. Her work has gained her international recognition as an expert in human stem cell research, at the cutting-edge in advancing understanding of the function, maturation and disease-associated dysfunction, of cortical interneurons in the developing and adult brain.