Two HRB research funding awards for newly established UCD Centre for Psychosis Research

Congratulations to Professor Brian O’Donoghue who has been awarded two research grants as Principal Investigator by the Health Research Board.

The Applied Partnership Award (APA) will develop and evaluate an intervention and clinical guideline to support people affected by psychotic disorders to stop smoking. Over 60% of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia smoke tobacco and this is a major contributor to the early mortality suffered by this population. This grant of €220,000 will fund a postdoctoral researcher for two years to develop and evaluate the intervention within outpatient clinics, a day hospital and in-patient unit. 

The Secondary Data Analysis Project will utilise one of the largest longitudinal datasets in first episode psychosis to evaluate the outcomes of different regimes of antipsychotic medications, outcomes following discontinuation and the potential role for pharmacogenetics to guide personalised treatment. This grant of €350,000 will fund a postdoctoral researcher in biostatistics for three years and will help inform clinical guidelines for the use of antipsychotic medications in both child & adolescent populations and in adults.

Both of these awards will contribute substantially to the development of the recently established UCD Centre for Psychosis Research.