Physicians from the Psychiatry and Psychology Department of Hospital Clinic-IDIBAPS, awarded at the SEPB congress

Physicians and researchers from the Psychiatry and Psychology Department of Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, IDIBAPS and CIBERSAM have been awarded by the Spanish Society of Biological Psychiatry (SEPB) within the Research Excellence Program. It was during the XIX Spanish National Congress of Psychiatry held last October in Palma de Mallorca. Dr. Eduard Parellada received the SEPB Reference Investigator Prize and Dr. Íria Grande, the SEPB Young Investigator Prize.

Dr. Eduard Parellada, member of the Schizophrenia Unit led by Dr. Miquel Bernardo, was awarded with the SEPB Reference Investigator Prize. It has been because of a collaborative study, funded by the FIS and entitled “Apoptotic markers in cultured fibroblasts correlate with brain metabolites and regional brain volume in antipsychotic-naive first-episode schizophrenia and healthy controls” in which he is the Principal Investigator and Dr. Albert Batalla, the first author. This study describes for the first time that peripheral markers of apoptotic susceptibility in fibroblast cultures may be correlated with brain metabolites and brain regions consistent with theories of neuroprogression in early stages of schizophrenia.

Dr. Iria Grande, member of the Bipolar Disorders Program, led by Dr. Eduard Vieta, received the SEPB Young Investigator Prize for the first authorship in a review published in The Lancet about Bipolar Disorder. In this review all the current knowledge about this disease is summarized. On the other hand, Dr. Vieta has also been co-director of the doctoral thesis made by Dr. Irene Forcada, from Hospital de Santa María de Lleida, entitled “Cognitive reserve, neuropsychology and neurostructural factors involved in the functionality of bipolar disorder” and which has received the award for the best doctoral thesis of the course 2014-2015.

During the SEPB congress, Dr. Iria Grande was appointed deputy secretary of the Spanish Society of Psychiatry, along with the vice-president, Dr. Celso Arango, current scientific director of CIBERSAM.

Rereferences:

Apoptotic markers in cultured fibroblasts correlate with brain metabolites and regional brain volume in antipsychotic-naive first-episode schizophrenia and healthy controlsBatalla A, Bargalló N, Gassó P, Molina O, Pareto D, Mas S, Roca JM1, Bernardo M, Lafuente A, Parellada E.Transl Psychiatry. 2015 Aug 25;5:e626.