Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are recruiting volunteers as part of an international study designed to uncover the genetic basis of major depression.
“Unipolar depression is a major clinical problem with lifetime prevalence in Western cultures estimated to be between 4 and 12 percent,” says John Rice, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine and principal investigator at the St. Louis site. “Although approximately 70 percent of patients respond to treatment with antidepressants, up to 75 percent have a recurrence within 10 years, and a very high proportion of sufferers remain undiagnosed and untreated.”
Armed with new information from the Human Genome Project, researchers hope to uncover the genes that determine why certain people in a family develop depression while others do not. Identification of susceptibility genes could revolutionize the current understanding of the disease and guide the design of new drugs to prevent or treat this debilitating disorder.
The project is looking for families that have two or more siblings with recurrent major depression. All participants will be asked to complete a diagnostic interview and answer family history questions. Participants or relatives who live too far away to visit the School of Medicine can be interviewed by telephone.
Participants will also be asked to give blood samples for DNA studies. Blood samples may be drawn by local physicians and forwarded by mail if a visit is not possible.
All examinations and evaluations related to the study are provided free of charge, and participants receive compensation for their time and travel.
The St. Louis site has enrolled 200 families and is looking to recruit an additional 40 families. The study is sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline.
For more information call program manager Caroline Drain at (314) 286-1345 or toll free at 1-888-292-1210. Visit the study’s web site (http://zork.wustl.edu/depression/index.html).
The full-time and volunteer faculty of Washington University School of Medicine are the physicians and surgeons of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked second in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.