About us - Partner 5: Cagliari Site
We at the Cagliari site are managing a proportion of the recruitment process especially for Phase 2, and have also contributed to Phase 1. We are involved in the data collection and analysis of the online surveys and the focus groups (WP 5) as well as in the biostatistical analyses of the PROMPT results.
PROMPT OFFICIAL TEAM DESCRIPTION
Prof. Bernardo Carpiniello (MD) a specialist in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy is Director of the Psychiatric Clinic and Full Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Cagliari. He is currently Vice Chair of the European Psychiatric Association National Psychiatric Associations Council, board member of the Italian Psychiatric Association as past President, member of the board of the Italian Society of Psychopathology (SOPSI). Prof. Carpiniello was formerly President of the Italian Academic Board of Professors, President of the Italian Psychiatric Association, President of the Italian Society of Social Psychiatry and President of the Italian Society of Psychiatric Rehabilitation. He is member of Editorial Board of “Journal of Psychopathology”, “Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health”, Journal of Mental Health Systems, and Co-Editor of “Case Report in Medicine” and Co-Editor of the Springer’s Book Series “Comprehensive Approach to Psychiatry”. Prof. Carpiniello’s main areas of research interest are clinical psychiatry, clinical psychopharmacology, social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology and consultation-liaison psychiatry; he is author or co-author of 350 papers, with 150 of them published in national or international peer-reviewed journals.
Prof. Mirko Manchia (PhD, MD) is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Cagliari and is Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is currently co-Chair of the Bipolar Disorders Network of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology After his medical degree, he trained in clinical pharmacology (clinical residency), neuroscience (PhD), and psychiatry (clinical residency). Further, he completed a four-year clinical research fellowship in Mood Disorders at the Department of Psychiatry of Dalhousie University under the supervision of Dr. Martin Alda from 2009 to 2013. Dr. Manchia has developed his research interest on the study of clinical and neurobiological aspects of bipolar disorder, with a specific focus on genetics of lithium response and suicidal behavior. He serves in the editorial board of several international journals, is a founding member of the Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLiGen), and is part of the International Group for the Study of Lithium Treated Patients (IGSLi). Further, he has received several awards from national and international scientific associations including the prestigious Travel Award of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He has authored more than 160 papers on bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and related phenotypes in international peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Pasquale Paribello graduated in Medicine and Surgery in 2015 from the University of Cagliari with a score of 110/110 and laude, and completed his training in psychiatry at the same University in 2022 with a score of 50/50 with laude. Since 2022 he has been a PhD student in Neuroscience at the University of Cagliari. During his training in psychiatry, he collaborated on several research projects aiming at exploring the complex interaction between gut microbiota composition, sociodemographic variables, and psychopathology in severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Subinvestigator of the phase II/III Evenamide NW-3509/008A/II/2020 clinical trial as a rater. Within PROMPT, he is involved in the management of the required research documents for the study at his site and collaborates in the handling of biological samples.
Dr. Marco Pinna (PsyD) is a Research Fellow at the University of Cagliari. He graduated in Clinical Psychology at the University of Padua with a thesis on efficacy of psychoeducation in Bipolar Disorder. Recently, his research activity has focused on to evaluation of the impact of the genotyping of the CYP2D6 and CYP2C19 genes in a sample of patients of Sardinian origin on clinical outcomes in patients suffering from MDD and being treated with antidepressants. He is currently coordinating the recruitment of a project based on a multi-omic approach and integration of metabolomic data with gut microbiota to identify biological signatures of response to mood stabilizers in bipolar disorder. He is involved in the recruitment, psycho-diagnostic evaluation and clinical phenotypic characterization of depressed patients enrolled in Phase 2 of PROMPT project. He is also involved in conducting focus groups related to the survey committee.
Dr. Martina Contu graduated in Clinical Psychology and she is a research assistant at the University of Cagliari. Her research activity is mainly focused on a project that aims to increase the accuracy in characterizing the phenotypical and biological signature for the different Obsessive Compulsive Disorder subtypes through clinical, cognitive and sleep markers, along with other possible markers that may be biologically plausible. She is involved in the clinical phenotypic characterization of depressed patients enrolled in Phase 2 and in the part related to focus groups of PROMPT project.
Prof. Alessio Squassina (MSc, PhD) is associate professor of Pharmacology at the University of Cagliari (Italy) and adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University (Halifax, Canada). He is currently the Chief of the Laboratory of Pharmacogenomics of the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Cagliari. Prof. Squassina trained as a pharmacologist and molecular biologist in Italy and Canada gaining extensive expertise in the genomics and pharmacogenomics of mental disorders. He is member of the Pharmacogenomics Working Group of the Global Genomic Medicine Collaborative (G2MC), of the Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLiGen), and member of the Thematic Networks “Pharmacotranscriptomics” and “Bipolar Disorder” of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP). He has been principal investigator, co-investigator or participant in several national and international grants. He has authored more than 130 papers and 6 book chapters mostly focused on the exploration of the genetic underpinnings of neuropsychopharmacology, mental and neurological disorders. Within PROMPT, he is involved in supervising the collection of biological specimens and local biobanking.
Prof. Claudia Pisanu (PhD, MD) is assistant professor of Pharmacology at the University of Cagliari (Italy). After her medical degree, she obtained a specialty in Pharmacology and a PhD in Neuroscience. She is a member of the Pharmacogenomics and Transcriptomics Network of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) and of the Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLiGen). Her research interests include investigation of molecular determinants of psychiatric disorders and response to pharmacological treatment, investigation of gender differences in the efficacy and safety of drugs, and integration of clinical and multi-omics profiling. She has authored more then 80 papers on peer-reviewed journals and received several awards from national and international scientific organizations such as Fondazione Umberto Veronesi, GIMBE, Società Italiana di Farmacologia, the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics and the British Pharmacological Society. Within PROMPT, she is involved in the handling of biological samples and in the development of the surveys.
Miss Anna Meloni is a PhD student in Neuroscience at the University of Cagliari (Italy). She is currently working at the Laboratory of Pharmacogenomics of the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Cagliari, under the supervision of Prof. Alessio Squassina. She graduated in Pharmacy with an experimental thesis on cellular aging and inflammation in psychiatric disorders. Anna has experience in research laboratory activities, which she developed during the traineeship for the preparation of the MSc thesis, the research fellow, and the PhD course and the training period at the Max Plank Institute of Psychiatry under the supervision of Professor Elisabeth Binder, in Munich. Her research activity has been focused on the investigation of the genetic bases of psychiatric disorders and response to psychotropic medications, with a specific interest in the role of accelerated aging and inflammation in mood disorders.