The Lieber Institute for Brain Development is a nonprofit research center located in Baltimore, Maryland, that studies brain developmentissues such as schizophrenia and autism. The cause of most neuropsychiatric disorders remains unknown and current therapies such as antipsychotics and antidepressants treat symptoms rather than the underlying illness. Lieber is working to unravel the biological basis of these brain disorders and is developing therapies to treat or prevent their development.
The Lieber Institute was started in 2010 by Steve and Connie Lieber along with Milton and Tamar Maltz—both families have children with schizophrenia. Psychiatrist Daniel R. Weinberger is the CEO. Having gathered over 3,000 brains for research purposes, the institute has the largest collection of post-mortem brains diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. These brains are used to study the biological basis for mental illnesses. In one study of post-mortem brains, LIBD researchers found that patients with schizophrenia had high levels of DNA methylation in brain regions associated with risk for schizophrenia. They are also developing a drug to prevent post-traumatic stress disorder. A paper by Lieber scientists found that altering brain proteins caused the cells of autistic brains to behave normally. The specific type of autism is called Pitt–Hopkins syndrome and researchers are looking into possible treatments that could be used for the condition and for other types of autism. Researchers with Lieber published a paper in Nature Medicine that examined the placenta and found that genes and pregnancy problems combine to increase the likelihood of developing schizophrenia. This study adds to growing evidence that the placenta is critical to understanding the health and course of pregnancy.
In 2019, the Lieber Institute announced a new initiative to study brain diseases in African Americans. The venture is a partnership with the African-American Clergy Medical Research Initiative, a group of clergy leaders in Baltimore. Research suggests that neuropsychiatric diagnoses are 20% more frequent in African-American communities than in communities of European ancestry.
