ketamine

A New Tool in the Battle Against Depression

Annual Lecture Details Revolutionary Treatment’s Bench-to-Bedside Journey

depressed man in a dark room

As hard as IRP scientists work in the lab, they work equally hard to make sure their findings have a real-world impact on patients’ lives. The pathway from the lab to the clinic, though, is rarely straightforward — something IRP senior investigator Carlos Zarate Jr, M.D., knows first-hand from his game-changing innovations in treating depression.

Dr. Zarate closed this year’s NIH Research Festival on September 22 by describing that odyssey in the 16th annual Philip S. Chen, Jr., Ph.D. Distinguished Lecture on Innovation and Technology Transfer. Named in honor of the former IRP investigator who established NIH’s Office of Technology Transfer in 1986, the annual event celebrates important IRP innovations that have moved beyond the boundaries of NIH.

Symposium Shows Off NIH Graduate Students' Research

NIH graduate student Anahit Mkrtchian

The NIH’s main campus in Bethesda, Maryland, may have the look and feel of a university campus, but the world-renowned research institution does not grant credentials like an M.D. or Ph.D. Instead, the Graduate Partnerships Program offers graduate students from schools around the world the opportunity to complete research for their Ph.D. dissertations in IRP labs while pursuing advanced degrees from their ‘host’ institutions.

Shedding Light on the Deep Darkness of Depression

Dr. Carlos Zarate with a participant in a neuroimaging study

In 2016, more than one in twenty American adults and one in ten adolescents experienced at least one major depressive episode. For nearly 45,000 of these individuals, their condition was severe enough that it led them to take their own lives. Unfortunately, the medications currently available to treat depression are not always effective and can take up to six weeks to substantially reduce symptoms.

To improve treatment and accelerate symptom relief, IRP senior investigator Carlos Zarate Jr., M.D., is working towards the development of new medications for depression, along with the identification of new drug targets and objective measures called biomarkers that yield information about how a patient is responding to treatment. In recent years, his lab has extensively investigated and assessed the effects of the anesthetic drug ketamine on depression and suicidal thoughts. Many of the patients in his trials have had marked and rapid responses to ketamine, sometimes within a single day or just a couple of hours. 

On Tuesday, November 13, Dr. Zarate participated in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) to answer questions from the public about the way depression is currently treated and the latest efforts to develop cutting-edge therapies for the condition. Read on for some of the most interesting exchanges that took place or check out the full AMA on Reddit.