Transforming psychiatry: inflammation, platform trials, and the power of science communication

Carmine M. Pariante is Professor of Biological Psychiatry at King’s College London, and Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust. He investigates the role of stress and inflammation in the causes and treatments of mental disorders, both in the laboratory and in clinical studies. His work focuses on depression and fatigue, with a particular interest in the perinatal period and in subjects with medical disorders. More recently, he has developed an interest in the effects of the arts, social prescribing, and nutritional interventions, on mental health. He has published more that 400 scientific papers, with a Google Scholar H-Index >100, and has received numerous awards for his research, including the 2012 “Academic Psychiatrist of the Year” Award from the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the 2017 NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award, one of the most prestigious international research awards in psychiatry; he is also a Clarivate Analytics Highly Cited Researcher. His dream is that new therapeutic tools targeting the stress and inflammatory systems will soon be available to alleviate the suffering of patients with mental health problems. He appears regularly in international media outlets to discuss mental health issues, and can be followed on Twitter and Instagram as @ParianteLab and on the blog that he edits, www.inspirethemind.org.

Jelena Brasanac is a postdoctoral researcher at the Klinik für Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charite Universitätsmedizin Berlin. She is interested in investigating the interactions between psychiatric symptoms and the immune system, setting up novel models of clinical trials as well as harnessing the potential of altered states of consciousness in the treatment of mental health disorders.