Institute presentation

Our Department is uniquely and ideally suited to carry out translational research in psychiatry. On the one hand, we have access to large patient samples, as the Department features 144 in-patient beds, 50 day patients, and large out-patient facilities for patients suffering from ADHD and affective disorders. The latter disorders are also amongst the key clinical foci of the Department, as e.g. demonstrated by the Research Unit on ADHD that has ascertained the largest sample of adult ADHD patients world-wide. Furthermore, as evidenced by numerous publications, we tightly cooperate with the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry which is located in the same building. Beyond treatment as usual, there is an extensive and elaborate clinical research framework including early recognition of psychiatric disorders, cognitive remediation, long-term follow-up of patients including neuropsychological/-imaging examinations and fluid biomarkers. On the other hand, the Department features a fully equipped laboratory focusing on molecular biology and animal behaviour. On site, high throughput genotyping methods are available; a S2 safety level cell culture laboratory with state-of-the-art microscopy has been used to establish a method to re-program human fibroblasts to hiPSCs, which are then further differentiated into neurons. Furthermore, functional assays on cellular systems can be conducted, also including radioactive material and patch clamp approaches. Finally, our Department features two laboratories that are fully equipped for automatized assessment of transgenic mice, some of which have been generated at the Department. The facilities are run by an excellent staff of scientists with an interdisciplinary background. Taken together, our Department features all pertinent methodological and logistical requirements, along with the necessary personal expertise, to examine the functional consequences of candidate molecule changes on the neurobiological and behavioural level in rodents and, at the same time, recruit a substantial number of human risk variant carriers for further characterization, specifically, the harvest of human fibroblasts that then can be further processed on site.