Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance Honors Dr. Martha Sajatovic, Dr. Helen Verdeli with Gerald L. Klerman Young Investigator Awards

Doctors Kay Redfield Jamison, Frederick Goodwin, Ned Kalin among honorees at consumer organization’s annual scientific advisory board luncheon

(CHICAGO, June 11, 2007)— The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA), the nation’s largest patient-run organization focusing on the most prevalent mental illnesses, honored Martha Sajatovic, MD, and Helen Verdeli, PhD, as co-recipients of the 2006 Gerald L. Klerman Young Investigator Award at the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) 160th Annual Meeting in San Diego, Calif., May 19-23.

The Gerald L. Klerman Young Investigator Award is given annually to a junior investigator with significant contributions to understanding the causes, diagnosis and treatment of depressive and bipolar illnesses.

Doctors Sajatovic and Verdeli were selected by DBSA’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) Executive Committee in consultation with DBSA constituents. Consumers and family members participated via an online vote that overviewed the work of each nominated researcher and allowed consumers and their families to vote for the researchers they believed had the greatest impact on their health and wellness. The two honorees accepted their awards at DBSA’s Annual Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) Luncheon at APA’s annual meeting. DBSA’s SAB comprises some of the leading researchers and clinicians in the nation focusing on mood disorders.

The awards are named after Gerald L. Klerman, MD, one of DBSA's earliest supporters. A major figure in psychiatry, he led the first multisite study to understand the diagnosis, clinical course and genetics of major depression. This 30-year longitudinal study remains ongoing and has provided the baseline information on the course of depression.

Dr. Klerman conducted the first clinical trial showing the efficacy of medication and psychotherapy in the prevention of recurrent depression. For that trial he developed interpersonal psychotherapy, an evidence-based treatment widely used today and modified for the adjunct treatment of medicated patients with bipolar disorder.

Dr. Sajatovic’s contributions to the care and treatment of the seriously mentally ill have characterized her career as a clinician and advocate for those dealing with the challenges of bipolar disorder. Over the course of her medical career, she has acquired expertise in treating geriatric psychiatric illnesses and complicated mood and psychotic disorders. She is a professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio.
 
Her work on health care services for disadvantaged populations, especially in the seriously mentally ill elderly, has been methodologically rigorous and also of considerable public health importance. In a recent special issue of the Journal of The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, Dr. Sajatovic was first author on two of six featured publications on late-life bipolar disorder.  Dr. Sajatovic, in collaboration with Dr. Frederic Blow, PhD, from the University of Michigan, co-edited the book, Bipolar Disorder in Later Life, published this year by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Dr. Verdeli’s research focusing on treatment and prevention of mood disorders through psychotherapy with emphases on symptomatic children of bipolar parents and the study of psychotherapeutic interventions for people living with depression in developing countries. For her work with adolescents she has received a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, a Sol Goldman Charitable Trust Grant and most recently an NIMH Research Career Development Award.

She is a member of the Mental Health Advisory Committee for the Millennium Villages Project of the Earth Institute at Columbia University (directed by Jeffrey Sachs); a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention; an Affiliated Faculty member of the Institute for African Studies at Columbia University’s Teachers College; and now a member of DBSA’s SAB.

Currently on faculty at New York State Psychiatric Institute, Dr. Verdeli received a master’s degree in social psychology from the London School of Economics in the UK. 

For more information on the Klerman Award winners, or information on depression and bipolar disorder, visit www.DBSAlliance.org.

For more information contact Keith Romero at (312) 642-0049.