Question: What role does an organization like NARSAD play in the field of psychiatric research?
Male Speaker: The role of NARSAD is an important question to ask, because people tend to think that progress in research is all about money. It is partly about money, it requires money, but money is necessary, but not sufficient. You can think about a little bit like how you would develop a portfolio for investments. You're going to have some blue chips and often it's the federal government, an agency like NIMH, The National Institute of Mental Health that purchases very expensive and fairly safe large-scale research projects.
At the same time you need your venture fund, you need somebody who, maybe not spending the big bucks that the federal government might invest, but can put money into high risk, innovative projects, might succeed and if they do terrific, might fail and in that case, you haven't lost so much. That's where an organization like NARSAD can be very helpful.
The other place where NARSAD makes a difference is in identifying young talent. And we try to do that as well. NARSAD has a superb scientific advisory board and a lot of what they can do is to identify those people very early in their career before they have the data they might need for an NIH grant and they can support them to be able to collect the preliminary data that allows that particular young scientist to really get that running start, and ultimately means they'll get NIH support and have an independent research career.
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