On September 25th, the Psych-STRATA Consortium met in Bologna, Italy, for its second General Assembly. The meeting provided an opportunity for project partners to review progress, discuss challenges, and set the course for the next phase of the initiative.
Professor Bernhard Baune opened the session with an overview of the project’s current status. This was followed by presentations from Work Package leaders, each detailing recent developments and key challenges. Among the highlights, James Walters, Lina Jonsson, and Julia Kraft from WP1 shared significant updates on the genetic architecture of treatment resistance in psychiatric disorders. Chiara Fabbri and Michael Ziller presented an enhanced roadmap in WP2 for identifying proteomic signatures of treatment resistance in plasma, offering an unprecedented level of detail. Inge Winter-van Rossum from WP3 showcased the progress of the INTENSIFY clinical trial and announced the involvement of new recruitment sites.
WP5 presented the establishment of the Patient Advisory Board, which will play an essential role in shaping a Mental Health Board to support treatment decision-making. In the area of dissemination and patient empowerment (WP6), Sergi Papiol and Erik Van der Eycken introduced the final version of a survey integrated into the CentraXX patient app, designed to gather insights on the use of digital tools by patients enrolled in the INTENSIFY trial.
The consortium also welcomed a new member, Antreas Afantitis from NovaMechanics, who will lead two new work packages. His contributions will focus on identifying chemical compounds targeting key enzymes related to drug mechanisms (WP8) and integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning models into decision-making processes (WP9).
The meeting underscored the consortium’s commitment to advancing research on treatment resistance in psychiatric disorders and harnessing cutting-edge technology to improve patient outcomes.
Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to push the boundaries of mental health research and strive to achieve better outcomes for patients across the globe.
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