Dr. Etienne L. Sibille is Deputy Director and Senior Scientist in the Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute and holds the Campbell Family Chair in Clinical Neuroscience at CAMH. He is also a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Toronto.
Areas of Research
Dr. Sibille's research goals have consistently focused on translational research aimed at identifying the cellular and molecular bases of depression, specifically of the mood, affect and cognitive components of the illness. His laboratory studies encompass parallel investigations in postmortem brains of depressed and control subjects, and in preclinical genetic and environmental models, with the aims of characterizing the primary pathology of depression and assessing causal links between identified molecular changes or candidate neurotransmitter systems and mood regulation. Current projects include translating human postmortem findings on the role of the GABA microcircuitry in mood regulation, and specifically of reduced somatostatin-positive dendritic targeting interneuron function.
In parallel studies, he and his lab have demonstrated that biological pathways affected during aging of the human brain largely overlap with neuropsychiatric and other neurological disease pathways and may in fact promote diseases. This provides a compelling rationale for investigating aging and diseases simultaneously and remains an innovative strategy for identifying novel mechanisms of brain disorders. These latter hypotheses are now being tested in parallel in preclinical models and in human brains postmortem brain, as well as large epidemiological studies of human subjects.
The vision of his lab is to further develop new understandings of mechanisms underlying mood disorders; to develop strategies for new therapeutic approaches and to bring them to the clinic; and to develop a new model of drug development based on the integration of best aspects of academic, biotech and pharmaceutical strategies. To reach these goals, his research program is being developed along three interrelated units: 1) to characterize the primary pathology in human samples and relevant preclinical models; 2) to investigate mechanisms and assess the validity of biological targets in cell-based systems; and 3) to perform robust and streamlined preclinical studies for testing therapeutic strategy at the behavioral and molecular/cellular levels.
For more information view Dr. Sibille's lab website.
Publications
View Dr. Sibille's publications on PubMed.