BioMed X, AbbVie Launch Anhedonia Research Team

BioMed X has launched a new research team in collaboration with AbbVie at the BioMed X Institute in New Haven, Connecticut, which aims to advance understanding of the circuit mechanisms underlying anhedonia through the development of new anhedonia model systems with high human translational value. The new project, entitled “Circuit-Based Model Systems of Anhedonia” (CMA), will be led by BioMed X innovation boot camp winner Dr. Kevin Michael Keary III.

Before joining BioMed X as Group Leader, Keary was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, San Francisco, in the laboratory of Dr. Kevin Bender, where he specialized in dopamine D3 receptor signaling and its engagement by antipsychotic medications. He received his PhD in Neuroscience through the Brown University–NIH Graduate Partnerships Program, studying mechanisms of hippocampal structural and functional plasticity with Dr. Zheng Li.

Anhedonia, the diminished ability to experience pleasure, is a debilitating symptom in Major Depressive Disorder and Schizophrenia. Despite the clear clinical need, traditional antidepressant and antipsychotic medications lack adequate treatment efficacy for anhedonia relief. This is in part due to insufficient understanding of the cellular, circuit, and network mechanisms contributing to anhedonia.

“By delineating the circuitry and mechanisms contributing to anhedonia, we hope to identify biomarkers to improve diagnostic criteria and identify therapeutic targets to improve functional outcomes in anhedonia treatment,” said Keary.

This is the third research project in the collaboration between BioMed X and AbbVie.

In July, BioMed X and Boehringer Ingelheim launched a new research team which aims to develop an innovative human organotypic in vitro platform technology for the development and validation of next-generation intraocular biologics.