Queensland scientists have identified huge opportunities to develop better treatments for mental health disorders, based on significant genetic breakthroughs of the past decade.
QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute scientists have been among international collaborations that have identified hundreds of genes linked to a range of mental health conditions thanks to DNA donated by millions of people and advances in supercomputing technology.
But statistical geneticist Eske Derks, head of QIMR Berghofer's translational neurogenomics laboratory, said she had been frustrated the genetic discoveries were yet to be converted into improved drug treatments for disorders such as anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and anorexia nervosa.
She has issued a challenge to the international scientific community to deliver a new era of precision psychiatry by tapping into the many "extraordinary genetic discoveries" during the past 10 years to find better mental health treatments.
"We've made so much progress in the last 10 years in identifying these genes," Professor Derks said.
"Let's get together and think about ways we can translate this information into better treatments. I think that's something that will happen.
"It may take a couple of years, maybe even 10 years, but I do think we will be able to find more effective treatments. We need to get ready for the next decade as a community."
'We owe it to the people who have donated'
In a paper published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Genetics, Professor Derks and colleagues Jackson Thorp and Zachary Gerring, identified the translation of genetic data into the discovery of new psychiatric drugs as one of 10 key challenges in the field.
"We've had an era of genetic discovery and now we're on the threshold of a new era of precision psychiatry, which could offer more effective drugs for patients and could help clinicians to better diagnose and treat these complex conditions," Professor Derks said.
"The challenges we've identified are not simple to solve but with a creative, collaborative, and co-ordinated research approach — and investment that supports scientists to do this work — we could make this new era a reality.
"We owe it to the people who have generously donated their DNA and to those living with a mental illness."
Professor Derks identified a big opportunity in integrating genetic discoveries with large drug databases to find already existing medications that may be repurposed for use in treating mental health disorders.
That would mean getting new treatments to psychiatric patients much faster and cheaper than experimental treatments not yet been tested for safety.
"The development of a new drug takes on average 13-15 years and costs between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion with only a 10 per cent chance of clinical approval," the researchers wrote in Nature Genetics.
"An alternative and more cost-effective approach for drug discovery is the repurposing of approved drugs that are tested for clinical efficacy to treat a disease different from that of its original indication."
The QIMR Berghofer scientists also called for more studies into the genes underlying mental health disorders to better understand their biological basis.
"Sometimes we don't understand what these genes are doing exactly, what their biological mechanism is," Professor Derks said.
