Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Schizophrenia is a complex and debilitating disease, that affects 1% of the population worldwide. The most recent genetics studies found 287 locations on the human genome to be associated with high risk for schizophrenia. Also, various environmental risk factors have been linked to the development of schizophrenia, including substance abuse. Schizophrenia also shows variable prognosis, treatment response and outcome. For example, 34% of schizophrenia patients fail to respond to two different antipsychotic medications and are diagnosed with treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS). A long-standing strategy to address the heterogeneity of schizophrenia has been to subdivide patients into groups based on similarities. However, there is evidence for only two separable subgroups of schizophrenia. Moreover, an extensive body of evidence has linked the immune system to the development of schizophrenia, however, the underlying mechanism of this association is not well understood. In this project, we are aiming to further study the association between the immune system and schizophrenia subtypes and phenotypes. We will investigate the relationship between the genetic architecture of the immune system, the peripheral immune biomarkers and schizophrenia subtypes. Moreover, we will leverage innovative artificial intelligence algorithms to different data types including genetics, sociodemographic and clinical data, to predict the schizophrenia subtypes. Overall, this study will shed light on the role of the immune system in schizophrenia and could provide evidence for distinct subtypes of schizophrenia, potentially leading to a more tailored treatment.