Science Saturday: Seeking biomarkers for precise alcohol abuse therapies
Mayo Clinic research combines genetics and psychiatry to seek biomarkers for precise alcohol abuse therapies
Mayo Clinic research is bringing together knowledge of psychiatry, genetics, metabolomics, pharmacogenomics and artificial intelligence to seek biological markers associated with alcohol use disorder and treatment response. Finding the molecular drivers of alcohol use disorder commonly known as alcoholism, could help predict who is most likely to develop this disorder and who might respond to medications approved for treatment. It might also reveal insights into new medications when standard drugs don’t work and could guide health care providers to precise treatments.
“Alcohol use disorder is one of the most prominent mental health problems in the world, second only to depression in terms of burden of disease,” says Victor Karpyak, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic psychiatrist, co-principal investigator and leader of the integrated study team. “Only about 10 percent of those with alcohol use disorder seek therapeutic help. We believe that’s because people don’t expect medications to be efficient and helpful in treatment, which is unfortunate and factually incorrect.” Read the rest of the article.
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