About InPsych
The immunopsychiatry research group is based at the University of Bristol within the Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit and the Centre for Academic Mental Health. The group investigates the role of inflammation in psychiatric disorders, neurodevelopment, cognition, and in physical and psychiatric multimorbidity across the life course using population data, genetics, and early-phase clinical trials. The aim of our work is to identify and validate novel immunological mechanisms and treatment options for psychiatric disorders, with a focus on depression and schizophrenia. This work is clinically important because depression and schizophrenia affect one in four people in lifetime, but one in three people affected by these illnesses do not respond to currently available treatments.
The group is led by Golam Khandaker, Professor of Psychiatry at Bristol Medical School, Head of Translational Mental Health Programme at the Medical Research Council Integrative Epidemiology Unit, and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust.
We are happy to hear from people interested in mental health research including prospective students, staff, collaborators, study participants, the media, and people with lived experience of mental illness.
Research Projects
Funded by the Wellcome Trust, the InPsych group is currently investigating the role of low-grade inflammation, particularly IL-6 and other circulating inflammatory markers, in pathogenesis of depression and schizophrenia.
Effect of IL-6 inhibition in inflamed depression
Causal relationships between IL-6/IL-6R pathways, depression and schizophrenia
