History of the Program

India

In 1991, Dr. Nimgaonkar initiated collaborative research with Dr. Smita Deshpande at New Delhi. Using personal funds, he assisted Dr. Deshpande to initiate research at Dr RML Hospital, a government funded public hospital that had sparse research activities. In 1995, he utilized study leave from University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) to help initiate clinical research at RMLH, which was subsequently upgraded as the PGIMER and now, the ABVIMS, affiliated with the Guru Gobind Singh Indra Prastha University, Delhi (GGSIPU). In time, Dr. Deshpande led an independent psychiatric research program. She initiated joint research programs with investigators in Israel.

The two of them extended their research training work to Delhi University (DU, South Campus, Department of Genetics) and Center for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad. Their Delhi University collaborator, Dr BK Thelma, initiated joint research with several other institutions in the country (e.g., National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, NIMHANS, Bengaluru and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, AIIMS, Delhi). Both RML and DU work has been, and continues to be, funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the Department of Science and Technology, and Department of Biotechnology, India, the NIH, the World Health Organization and Stanley Medical Research Institute.

Through their collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research via the Grantathon 2016, their training program mentored Junior and mid-level medical faculty and scientists all over India and continue to do so beyond the Grantathon 2022.

Egypt

We replicated our Indian model in Egypt. In 2000, Dr. Hader Mansour, a junior faculty member at Mansoura University (MU), Mansoura, Egypt was accepted for graduate training in Dr. Nimgaonkar’s laboratory at Pitt. Following his PhD, Dr. Mansour and Dr. Nimgaonkar initiated a psychiatric research collaboration between MU and Pitt. There have been regular visits and discussions between other Pitt and MU investigators in the past decade. We extended our research training work to Cairo University through our first D43 grant. We have thus far trained over 15 Egyptian residents and junior faculty members, enabling them to gain research funds from Egyptian and US funding agencies. Egyptian faculty were actively involved in Grantathon 2016.

Faculty & Mentors in Egypt

Where we are today

Summary of the PRIIIA program. Our PRIIIA training program - based at four ‘hubs’ in India, with two medical colleges (Dept. of Psychiatry, ABVIMS-Dr. R.M.L. Hospital, New Delhi, St John’s Medical College and Hospital, Bengaluru) and two NGOs (Association for Health Welfare in the Nilgiris (ASHWINI), Gudalur, Tamil Nadu, Emmanuel Hospital Association (EHA), Delhi) working in mental health - supported medium- and long-term trainees. Training included online didactic lectures and application for Advanced In-Country Research Awards (AICRA). We provided capacity-building training and mentoring to motivated post-graduate students on strategies and methods for conducting research into novel interventions for schizophrenia, and other major mental disorders. An array of opportunities for potential trainees in response to their needs were presented. We maximized local resources and practices to ensure sustainability and increase impact and engaged faculty who are leading researchers.

In our PRIIIA grant alone, we trained 37 medium-term trainees, and 6 long-term trainees. Our 24 capacity building trainees completed three and a half years’ training and completed ICMR funded grants. We supported 10 of our medium-term trainees’ intervention studies through Advanced In-Country Research Awards (AICRA, n=10). Approximately 40% of our current trainees are women. Our trainees have published numerous peer reviewed papers and grants totalling $5,418,000 have been awarded to our trainees and collaborators.

Grantathons:

Capacity Building Workshops on Implementation Research for medical faculty:

We conceptualized the Grantathon as a ‘hackathon’: a form of crowdsourcing intended to spur innovation among groups with diverse backgrounds that learn from each other and work collaboratively toward a common goal. The Grantathon was conceptualized to develop research ideas and fundable projects. Based on our discussion with the then Director-General ICMR Dr Soumya Swaminathan, we asked applicants for research priorities from the National Mental Health Programme of India and designed a capacity building workshop.

Grantathon (I) (November 15-19, 2016): we designed and conducted a five-day workshop to provide mentored training in grant writing to junior and middle-level faculty from Indian academic institutions and mental health NGOs, in collaboration with the ICMR - Grantathon (1). The principal investigators of Grantathon continued their research projects well into PRIIIA timeline. They published 69 peer-reviewed papers, 49 presentations at scientific meetings, and won 18 awards. Subsequently they successfully obtained 20 research grants from ICMR and other agencies. They were included as Co-mentors in our subsequent Grantathon 2022.

Grantathon (II) (physical- February 11, 2018): In February 2018, we conducted a one-day Grantathon by invitation of the Indian Association of Private Psychiatry (IAPP). Modelled on our Grantathon (I) (ICMR), five faculty guided ten applicants and identified two projects for funding. Both proposals were mentored by both Indian and the US mentors and resulted in fundable projects.

Grantathon (III) (virtual, January 5-8, 2022): During the pandemic, 27 candidates completed our online application process, and six finalists presented their project proposals. Three of these were selected to receive AICRA funding.

Grantathon (IV) (physical, August 8-11, 2022): In response to the call for our Grantathon in collaboration with the ICMR, we received an unprecedented response of 277 applications, which included a biosketch along with a brief research summary. After review by our training faculty, 31 were shortlisted to develop their research ideas during the Grantathon. With the guidance of their mentors, these trainees prepared 16 proposals. After peer review, 10 projects were funded. The mentors included the PIs of our Grantathon 2016 as co-mentors.

We selected more qualified trainees than anticipated and thus required additional training faculty. We enlisted the assistance of additional senior faculty members suggested by the Indian Psychiatric Society, South Zone. Their credentials have been reviewed and approved by the ICMR.

Mentorathon for Mental Health Research: An International workshop was conducted in Bengaluru, Karnataka, from February 26th to 28th, 2024, in collaboration with the ICMR, and faculty from both national and international institutions participated. Topics discussed included mentoring and research implementation. Mentees and mentors worked in teams to discuss goals and timelines for the mentoring relationship.

The Impact of Global Mental Health Research on Veterans’ Care (India Comes to VA):

Through PRIIIA, Dr Nimgaonkar conducted a symposium on June 3-4, 2024, in collaboration with the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This symposium aimed to improve mental health care for Veterans in particular and for people worldwide in general. It was conceptualized by Dr. Vishwajit Nimgaonkar, Professor of Psychiatry and Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh, and Associate Chief of Staff for Behavioral Health at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. The workshop usefully opened areas of international collaborations.

Psychiatric Research Infrastructure, Intervention, and Implementation in India-TEAMS

(PRIIIA-TEAMS) D43TW009114; 2024-2029

PRIIIA has graduated into PRIIIA-TEAMS in 2024. Herein, we plan to expand our research infrastructure by training (A) early-career Research Trainees at the graduate and junior faculty levels, and (B) Apprentice Mentors/Mentors-in-Training. We plan to continue hands-on, trainee-initiated research as the cornerstone of our training, while fostering interdisciplinary, team-based approaches that focus on selected mental disorders and medical disorders co-occurring with those psychiatric disorders.

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