Jin Szatkiewicz, PhD (Associate Professor, Department of Genetics) was awarded a four-year R01 from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) for her project titled “Integrating developmental and genomic approaches to identify early trajectories of eating and internalizing disorder symptoms”.
Eating disorders and non-eating disorders internalizing-spectrum disorders (e.g., major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder) are chronic, debilitating, and frequently co-occurring disorders, which often onset in adolescence. This multi-site, multidisciplinary study will identify symptom trajectories across the overall internalising spectrum (across eating disorders and non-eating-disorders-internalising disorders) from late childhood through emerging adulthood in two population-based samples (ABCD and ALSPAC) and identify genetic and phenotypic factors associated with these developmental trajectories. The results will inform nosology, pathophysiology, and ultimately early identification.
This collaborative team science project includes Co-Investigators Cindy Bulik, PhD, (Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Nutrition) and Yufeng Liu, PhD (Professor, Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Biostatistics, and Genetics) from UNC Chapel Hill and subawards to the Mental Health Services in the Capital Region of Denmark (Co-Principal Investigator – Nadia Micali, MD, PhD), the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Co-Investigators – Katherine Schaumberg, PhD, James Li, PhD), and RTI International (Co-Investigators – Nisha Gottfredson, PhD)