Watch the Inspiring 2025 Science & Innovation Symposium Talks, Presented at the 31st One Mind Music Festival

In this deeply moving keynote presentation, Regina Dugan, PhD, CEO of Wellcome Leap, and Susanne Ahmari, MD, PhD, Program Director at Wellcome Leap, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and 2018 One Mind Rising Star Awardee, share a talk titled “Somebody’s Rachel: Delivering Innovation with Impact.”

Drawing from the heartbreaking story of Dugan’s daughter, Rachel, who was lost to depression at just 18, this presentation sheds light on the urgent need for breakthroughs in mental health care. Together, they unveil the progress of Wellcome Leap’s Multi-Channel Psych (MC Psych) program, a bold $50 million initiative designed to transform the treatment of depression.

With compassion and scientific rigor, Dugan and Ahmari illustrate how precision psychiatry—powered by AI, predictive algorithms, and purpose-built data—can dramatically shorten the time it takes to find the right treatment for patients with depression. What once could take 252 days of trial and error may now be reduced to just 91 days, potentially saving lives and eliminating months of suffering.

This is more than a scientific achievement—it’s a mission of hope. For Rachel. For somebody’s Rachel. And for the millions of people worldwide living with depression who need breakthroughs faster.

2025 One Mind-Bristol Myers Squibb Rising Star Awardee, Edward Twomey, PhD, is turning a once ‘undruggable’ brain receptor into a treatment target—opening new doors for therapies in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression.

Communication between neurons occurs at synapses, where specialized proteins regulate the transmission of signals that underlie thought, emotion, and adaptation. Disruption of synaptic signaling is linked to psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. One protein, glutamate receptor delta-1 (GluD1), encoded by the GRID1 gene, plays a key role in organizing synapses and is strongly associated with these illnesses. Long believed to be a non-functional receptor, Dr. Twomey’s recent work revealed that GluD1 is in fact a ligand-gated ion channel—making it a potential direct target for drug development. This project will determine GluD1’s detailed structure and function, investigate how disease-associated mutations alter its activity, and identify compounds that can modulate it. By establishing GluD1 as a druggable target, this research could open a new frontier in the treatment of psychiatric disorders at the level of core brain circuitry.

2025 One Mind-Burroughs Wellcome Fund Rising Star Awardee, Neir Eshel, MD, PhD, is rewiring the brain’s effort and motivation circuits to turn exhaustion into energy—offering fresh treatment paths for depression.

Everyday tasks can feel exhausting for people with depression, even when they previously enjoyed challenging activities. Dr. Eshel’s research examines how the brain assigns value to effort and why this system can fail in depression. His lab discovered that dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens increases with effort expenditure—regardless of reward—producing a “sunk cost” signal that helps sustain motivation. This project will map the brain circuits generating and responding to this effort signal, focusing on how dopamine, acetylcholine, and two major types of striatal neurons work together to drive persistence. Using mouse models of depression in which chronic stress reduces motivation, his team will investigate how these circuits are altered and test strategies to restore healthy effort signaling. The findings could guide the development of medications or brain stimulation approaches that transform effort from depleting to energizing, offering new hope for individuals struggling with depression.

2025 One Mind Rising Star Awardee, Annegret Falkner, PhD, is investigating protecting mood and decision-making during hormonal shifts—paving the way for next-generation, targeted hormone treatments without the side effects.

Mood disorders such as depression and anxiety often emerge or worsen during periods of rapid hormonal change—such as postpartum, throughout the menstrual cycle, during menopause in women, or during testosterone-to-estrogen fluctuations in men. Dr. Falkner’s research investigates how sudden drops in estrogen destabilize neural circuits involved in cognition, emotion, and decision-making, a process her lab measures using a novel biomarker called “neural state flipping.” Employing advanced brain recording techniques in animal models, her team will test whether enhancing estrogen receptor sensitivity in targeted cell types can prevent or slow this destabilization without the systemic side effects of traditional hormone therapy. The goal is to lay the groundwork for next-generation, precision hormone treatments that stabilize brain function during hormonal transitions and help prevent mood disorders in both women and men.

2025 One Mind Board of Directors Rising Star Awardee, Laura Berner, PhD, is training the brain’s self-control center to stop binge-purge cycles—bringing new hope for lasting recovery in eating disorders.

Bulimia nervosa (BN) is a common, serious eating disorder marked by cycles of binge eating and purging that can cause severe health complications. While existing treatments help some, more than half of patients continue to experience symptoms, underscoring the need for new approaches. Dr. Berner’s project targets the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC)—a key brain region for self-control—through an innovative combination of wearable neurofeedback and personalized smartphone interventions. In the lab, participants will use real-time brain imaging to learn strategies for increasing vlPFC activity while exposed to binge-triggering foods. These strategies will then be reinforced in daily life via text messages during participants’ most vulnerable moments. Computational modeling will help identify the most effective techniques. This is the first study to extend neurofeedback training for BN into real-world contexts, aiming to reduce binge/purge behaviors while advancing understanding of the disorder’s neural mechanisms.

2025 One Mind-Burroughs Wellcome Fund Rising Star Awardee, Moses Lee, MD, PhD, is cracking the brain’s electrical code for OCD—making deep brain stimulation faster, safer, and more precise for those with the toughest cases.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) can be debilitating, and about 10% of patients with severe, treatment-resistant symptoms see little improvement from therapy or medication. For these individuals, deep brain stimulation (DBS) offers hope—but only around 60% respond, often after lengthy trial-and-error adjustments. Dr. Lee’s project seeks to improve outcomes by developing “closed-loop” DBS systems that automatically adjust stimulation in real time based on brain activity. His team is conducting a personalized, two-stage DBS trial at UCSF. In stage one, temporary electrodes map the brain networks underlying each patient’s symptoms to pinpoint optimal stimulation targets. In stage two, permanent Medtronic Percept devices both stimulate and record brain activity over time, allowing researchers to identify neural biomarkers—particularly within CSTC circuits—linked to symptom changes. By using these biomarkers to guide stimulation, this work aims to make DBS more effective, faster to optimize, and safer for individuals with the most challenging cases of OCD.

Co-Founded by CEO Dina Burkitbayeva, and John Krystal, MD, Freedom Biosciences is a Yale spin-out and clinical-stage biotech platform developing next generation neuropsychiatric combination drugs. The pipeline includes two programs expected to enter the clinic this year: (1) The lead program Free001 (“extended efficacy ketamine”) is expected to start Phase 2a in H2 2025 for Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD) and (2) Free008 (“non-hallucinogenic psilocybin”) is expected to start Phase 1 in mid 2025 in the UK. The lead program (Free001 “extended efficacy” ketamine) is based on a Yale study that showed 3-4x longer duration of antidepressant effect than ketamine & esketamine: 14-21 days in antidepressant effects vs. 2-7 days for racemic ketamine and esketamine (published in Nature). Free001 is positioned to build upon the success of Jannsen’s Esketamine SPRAVATO, with $1B+ annual sales (expected to hit $5B).

The company has a stellar team: Co-Founder, Dr. John Krystal is Chair of Psychiatry at Yale. Dr. Krystal’s work at Yale led to the development of Jannsen’s Esketamine SPRAVATO, which was approved in 2019 for Treatment Resistant Depression. Co-Founder and CEO, Dina Burkitbayeva, is the Founder of PsyMed Ventures, a frontier mental health venture fund, and previously worked at McKinsey and J.P. Morgan. CMO, Dr. David Hough, led the SPRAVATO program ($1 Billion annual sales) for 7 years from Phase 2 through commercializa- tion and also led INVEGA SUSTENNA / INVEGA TRINZA programs ($4B+ annual sales). Chief Medical Advisor and Head of SAB, Dr. Robert Berman is the Co-Founder and former CMO of Biohaven (acquired by Pfizer for $11.6B in 2022).

Co-Founded by CEO Don Vaughn, PhD, and Jonathan Downar, MD, PhD, Ampa is a health tech startup that is commercializing a way to powerfully treat depression, anxiety, and addiction using technology—rather than meds. Ampa’s noninvasive device uses focused magnetic fields (TMS) to reactivate brain networks that have been disabled by mental illness. Data across multiple clinical sites show that 70% of patients achieve remission from depression after a one-day treatment. This efficacy, speed, and lack of side effects are unmatched. Ampa has developed unique technology to commercialize TMS at scale and democratize access for the other 99% who can’t afford or access this treatment.

Ampa’s vision is to meaningfully reduce the incidence and burden of depression by democratizing access to the most effective treatment. Towards this end, Ampa is commercializing technology that enables less expensive, smaller, and simpler TMS therapy while maintaining the high standard of efficacy set by the SNT protocol. The Ampa TMS platform is simple, scalable, portable, and telemedicine-capable—a next-generation TMS delivery system that enables patients to access high-quality, state-of-the-art treatment in any environment. With its focus on scalability and innovation, Ampa is poised to redefine the future of mental health care, offering renewed hope to millions worldwide.

In this candid conversation, One Mind CEO Kathleen Pike, PhD and Alex Sheehan, One Mind Lived Experience Council member, explore how workplaces can be catalysts for hope, healing, and human potential. Grounded in the latest science from One Mind’s Mental Health at Work Index, this conversation shares employer strategies for protecting mental health, promoting well-being, and providing resources that empower employees, including those living with serious mental illness, to thrive. Weaving together data-driven insights, best practice guidance, and lived experience, this conversation illuminates how creating supportive workplaces strengthens not only individuals, but the organizations and communities we share.

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Thank you to everyone who made the 30th One Mind Music Festival and the Science & Innovation Symposium a huge success! Your support enriches our research community, and we look forward to seeing you at next year’s event on September 19, 2026.