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Recent Updates

News

2nd FAMILY General Assembly Meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland

FAMILY’s 2nd General Assembly (GA) Meeting will take place from 04 to 06 October 2023 in the beautiful city of Lausanne, Switzerland.

During the meeting, work package leaders will present and discuss the overall status of their respective work package.

We are looking forward to meet again and hear about everyone’s progress!

05 - 06 October 2023
News

EUFAMI congress on Conflict and Recovery in Mental Health

FAMILY partner EUFAMI organizes together with the Lithuanian member-organisation LSPŽGB congress on “Conflict and Recovery in Mental Health” from 28 to 29 June 2024 in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Against a background of disruption and conflict in Europe over the past few years, mainly due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and also due to the significant displacement of war and cultural refugees, families have been the centre of, and most affected by, these crises.

The congress will be constructed around a plenary session during a period of two days, followed by a series of parallel workshops.

EUFAMI
LSPŽGB
28 - 29 June 2024
News

Welcome to our new scientific and ethical advisory board (SEAB) member – Dr. Ali Jawaid!

📢 Dr. Ali Jawaid is a physician-scientist with training in both clinical and basic neuroscience. He completed his medical studies from the Aga Khan University, Pakistan, and followed it up with clinical/research training in Neuropsychiatry from Baylor College of Medicine, USA. He then proceeded to complete MD-PhD in Neuroscience from Switzerland with simultaneous doctoral degrees awarded by the University of Zurich (UZH)/ETH Zurich PhD Program in Neuroscience and UZH MD-PhD program. He currently heads the Laboratory for Translational Research in Neuropsychiatric Disorders (TREND lab) at the BRAINCITY: Center of Excellence for Neural Plasticity and Brain Disorders, a partnership between EMBL and the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology in Warsaw, Poland. TREND lab investigates the role of metabolic factors in the pathogenesis and inheritance of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders using a multi-pronged approach involving rodent models, human cohorts, and brain organoids. Dr. Jawaid is also an active member of FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence and is a strong proponent of initiatives focussed on using science for humanitarian and peace-building causes.

Welcome to the FAMILY, Ali! 😊

Find out more about our SEAB members here.

21st August 2023

About

Mental illness runs in families.
The FAMILY consortium aims to improve the life of mentally-ill persons and their families:

  • firstly focus on better understanding the mechanisms of intergenerational transmission of mental illness from parent to child.
  • studying the family context, we will try to build models to predict whether mental illness will be transmitted across generations or not.
  • FAMILY will also address key ethical and social issues raised by risk prediction for clinical use, such as the right not to know, and the risk of stigma.
  • Lastly, together with the family advocacy and support organisation EUFAMI and the not-for-profit association ESCAP, we will try to increase awareness and foster active engagement of families, and translate new discoveries to patients and mental health care professionals.

Read more

FAMILY translates current barriers into 3 themes of enquiry, with the following 6 project objectives:

Theme 1

Understanding intergenerational transmission of risk

  • Estimate the contribution of genetic and environmental routes of intergenerational transmission of risk from parent to offspring throughout the life course.
  • Identify causal factors underlying genetic and environmental routes of risk transmission and resilience.
Theme 2

Predicting risk of mental illness in a familial context

  • Identify and validate genetic, epigenetic, and brain imaging biomarkers for risk or resilience to mental disease in the family.
  • Develop and validate a multimodal risk prediction model and a normative modelling framework to predict, at the individual level, who is at risk of developing a mental disorder.
Theme 3

Creating societal impact and end-user engagement

  • Map and evaluate social and ethical consequences of risk prediction for clinical use.
  • Increase awareness and foster active engagement of families and translate new discoveries to patients and mental health care professionals.

Impact

Scientific

New breakthrough scientific discoveries on the intergenerational transmission of risk of mental illness and risk prediction within a family context, pushing the field forward towards first clinical implementation of family-based prediction tools by 2035.

Clinical

Ethical considerations regarding risk prediction support mental health care professionals and patients and their families in clinical decision-making. Awareness on the role of transmission of risk of mental health problems stimulates the integration of child/adolescent and adult mental health care services, leading to improved care for high-risk families.

Societal

Improved mental health literacy in vulnerable high-risk families, resulting in increased engagement with their own mental health and earlier recognition of mental health problems, leading to earlier identification and preventive intervention. Improved quality of life of vulnerable high-risk families because of earlier recognition of emerging problems, earlier and focused preventive interventions, and less stigma and discrimination.

Economic

Earlier identification and preventive intervention of mental health problems prevents exacerbation of these problems, resulting in reduced mental health care cost in the longer term.