Overview

Founded in 2000, Psychiatric Genomics is using the power of genomics to discover novel therapeutics for psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder. PGI is working to identify new genes and genetic pathways involved in disease susceptibility as novel targets for drug discovery, use high-throughput screening of brain cell model systems to discover new drugs, and optimize those drug candidate for individual patient responses.

In addition to creating proprietary databases of normal, diseased and drug-associated gene expression patterns and using bioinformatics tools to mine the data, PGI plans to use fetal stem cells to grow “mini-brains” to screen compounds that target neurological disorders. The company has partenerd with ReNeuron Holdings plc on the “mini-brain” project.

The PGI discovery program begins with the creation of a database of normal, diseased and drug-associated gene expression patterns using differential display and gene expression monitoring technology. Bioinformatics tools mine the database to identify the genes and genetic pathways central to the susceptibility and pathology of the mental health disorders.

Partners

The company has partnered with ReNeuron Holdings plc, of Guildford, UK, for the “mini-brain” project. The companies will incorporate ReNeuron’s human neural stem cells into Psychiatric Genomics’ drug discovery platform in the field of mental disorders.