Watch the Inspiring 2024 Science & Innovation Symposium Talks, Presented at the 30th One Mind Music Festival
Each year, the Science & Innovation Symposium kicks off the annual One Mind Music Festival, bringing a renewed sense of hope for the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental illness. The 30th One Mind Music Festival, presented by Bank of America and Bristol Myers Squibb, took place on September 7, 2024 at the stunning Staglin Family Vineyard. Over 400 passionate attendees gathered to help raise a record-setting $3.56 million in support of brain health. The symposium portion of the event brought together leading scientists and visionaries, including One Mind Accelerator Founders and One Mind Rising Star Awardees, to showcase groundbreaking developments in mental health.
Get ready to be inspired and empowered—explore these engaging presentations and join the movement transforming mental health. Subscribe to One Mind’s YouTube channel to stay up to date on all the latest videos!
2024 Keynote Speaker
ARPA-H and Innovation in Mental Healthcare
with Susan Monarez, PhD Deputy Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H)
Watch this insightful discussion, between One Mind Co-Founder Brandon Staglin and keynote speaker Dr. Susan Coller Monarez, from the 2024 Science & Innovation Symposium at the 30th One Mind Music Festival. In this talk on The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health’s (ARPA-H) results-driven approach to healthcare research and its impact on advancing mental health treatments, Dr. Susan Coller Monarez explores some of the strategic initiatives aimed at addressing critical challenges in mental healthcare, offering a forward-thinking perspective on improving outcomes for individuals and families affected by mental illnesses. Dr. Susan Coller Monarez also shares ARPA-H’s vision for the future of mental healthcare, highlighting their role in driving transformative advancements across the field.
2024 Rising Star Awards: Research Projects
Understanding Adolescent Suicide Risk: Investigating the Role of the Endocannabinoid System Hilary Marusak, PhD Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Wayne State University School of Medicine
Suicide among young people is a critical global issue, with suicidal ideation (SI) occurring frequently during adolescence. Yet, the underlying biological mechanisms linking stress response and SI in youth remain unclear. By investigating the role of the endocannabinoid system in adolescent SI and its association with brain regulation of emotion, 2024 One Mind Rising Star Awardee Dr. Hilary Marusak aims to uncover crucial biomarkers that may predict SI risk. This research promises to advance our understanding of adolescent mental health, paving the way for targeted interventions and innovative treatments to support at-risk youth.
Activating Neurons in the Skin to Relieve Symptoms of Chronic Stress
Ishmail Abdus-Saboor, PhD Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences and the Zuckerman Institute, Columbia University
Chronic stress can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder where individuals have deficits ranging from an inability to engage in social interactions to anxiety and maladaptive fear. One approach that has been shown to relieve negative symptoms of chronic stress is social support. 2024 One Mind Rising Star Awardee Dr. Ishmail Abdus-Saboor aims to isolate some of the stress-relieving benefits of social support by targeting neurons in the skin that are activated during social touch. By discovering molecules that could activate these social touch neurons in the skin, Dr. Abdus-Saboor aims to develop a therapeutic strategy in the peripheral nervous system that could provide relief from symptoms of chronic stress and potentially other psychiatric disorders.
Understanding Stress Hormone Regulation of Dopamine Function to Treat Depression
Talia Lerner, PhD Associate Professor, Neuroscience, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Depression – a mood disorder associated with deficits in reward processing – affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide and can be difficult to treat. Stress is a major risk factor for the development and exacerbation of depression, but despite this well-established connection, we have no depression treatment that targets the biological stress response. Failures of translation stem from the fact that we do not understand how stress hormones interact with brain circuits for reward processing. 2024 One Mind Rising Star Awardee Dr. Talia Lerner is studying this question, examining how glucocorticoids like cortisol – the body’s primary stress hormone – impact dopamine – a neurotransmitter well-known to regulate reward processing. She has found that glucocorticoids regulate dopamine differently in males and females. By understanding this sex difference and elucidating its relationship with depression, she hopes to provide crucial mechanistic neurobiological insights to support the development of new depression treatments and to ensure these treatments work for men and women.
2024 One Mind Accelerator Talks
Amae Health: Coordinated Care for Serious Mental Illness
Sonia Garcia Founder & CPO, Amae Health
Sonia Garcia is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Amae Health, a specialty integrated care provider for individuals with severe mental illness. Sonia’s journey into the mental illness space began after tragically losing her father to suicide at age 16, and subsequently struggling for years to support her brother’s battle with schizoaffective disorder. This led her to launch a non-profit for young adults living with mental health issues in partnership with NAMI in Texas. She then went on to obtain an M.S. in Engineering from Stanford University’s d.school as a Knight-Hennessy Scholar with a thesis on human-centered mental health innovation. Prior to co-founding Amae, Sonia helped to build the nation’s first digital pediatric behavioral health company, Brightline. Sonia was recognized in Business Insider’s 30 under 40 in Healthcare, which highlights the most influential young leaders shaping the future of the industry.
Dionysus Health: Early Detection of Postpartum Depression for Better Outcomes
Andrea Cubitt, PhD Founder & CEO, Dionysus Health
Andrea Cubitt, PhD, is the Co-Founder and CEO of Dionysus Digital Health. She brings a proven track record of success building high value new companies. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship at Cornell Medical Center, Andrea started her professional career at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of California, San Diego where her work formed part of the research recognized by the Nobel Prize for Chemistry awarded to Roger Tsien in 2008. She left Academia in 1996 to commercialize this technology at Aurora Biosciences Corporation, which was subsequently acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals. In 2005, she co-founded AnaptysBio, INC, (IPO 2017) where she was instrumental in the development of the initial business plan and intellectual property strategies. She has spent much of her career bringing groundbreaking new technologies from bench research to commercialization with multiple successful exits.
Holobiome: Harnessing the Microbiome for Mental Health
Phil Strandwitz, PhD Founder & CEO, Holobiome
Philip Strandwitz, PhD, is the Co-Founder and CEO of Holobiome. Originally from Wisconsin, Phil is a microbiome scientist turned first-time entrepreneur. He’s the inventor of many of the key technologies powering Holobiome, and is an expert in the field of the human microbiome, with a special focus on the gut-brain-axis. Philip received his PhD in Biology from Northeastern University in 2016 under the guidance of Dr. Kim Lewis, and was supported by one of the first grants in the Human Microbiome Project. His graduate and postdoctoral studies focused on culturing novel bacteria from the human gut, and unraveling how these bacteria could influence the gut-brain-axis. He has published peer-reviewed articles in top-tier journals like Nature, Nature Microbiology and Microbiome, and has presented his research at numerous microbiome and business conferences, including the New York Academy of Science and BIO.
People & Science: Creating Workplaces that Promote and Support Our Mental Health
Tahilia J. Rebello, PhD Vice President, Science & Research, One Mind at Work
Workplaces have the potential to be more than just places of employment. They can be spaces where we contribute, connect, collaborate, and create, fostering a sense of belonging, satisfaction and, in some cases, even promoting recovery and healing. Envision a workplace where people can truly thrive, where science-based practices that promote well-being and mental health are woven into the fabric of daily operations and are core to the organization. In this talk, Dr. Tahilia Rebello shares how One Mind’s workplace initiatives aim to bring this vision to life. By employing people-centered and systems-level approaches, backed by scientific research, One Mind at Work’s programs aim to transform workplaces into environments that genuinely support mental health and foster the well-being of individuals, organizations, and communities. One Mind at Work leverages cutting-edge research and data-driven best practices from diverse fields such as psychology, public health, sociology, and business to support organizations in measuring and meaningfully improving their workplace mental health and well-being efforts.
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.