Dennis B. Kottler, MD
Westlake Village, CA
Appointments: 818-991-8376
Email: doc@psychiatrix.com
The future of psychiatry will involve a dramatically new approach to connecting psychiatric disorders to their underlying genetics and to effective pharmacological interventions. Of course, psychotherapy will continue to play a major role as well.
The key concept in future psychopharmacology (and all pharmacology) will be a bottom-up approach to drug discovery. In the bottom-up approach, genetic variations correlating with disorders will be identified through bioinformatic approaches, such as that being pursued by the Icelandic company, deCode Genetics. Populations will be carefully studied with regard to disease pedigrees and the underlying genetic correlations. An example of this is the well-known Amish study for Bipolar Disorder.
Once the genetic variant for a particular disorder is identified, the function of this gene will be investigated to determine what protein it produces. Next drug candidates will be pursued which have a modulating effect on this protein or, in another scenario, antisense RNA drugs will be developed. Such companies as Isis Pharmaceuticals and Sirna Therapeutics are pursuing this latter approach.
These new approaches are a quantum leap ahead of traditional, top-down methods of pharmacology and drug discovery. In the past, medications have often been discovered by trial and error, serendipity, or the hugely expensive pharmacological failure known as combinatorial chemistry.
Appointments: 818-991-8376
Email: doc@psychiatrix.com