Cyndi Shannon Weickert
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Cyndi Shannon Weickert | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| Alma mater | National Institute of Mental Health Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Keuka College |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | University of New South Wales |
Cyndi Shannon Weickert is an American psychiatrist. Her research investigates the molecular developmental neurobiology of schizophrenia.
Weickert is from Finger Lakes.[1] She studied biology and psychology at Keuka College in upstate New York.[2] She completed her doctorate in Biomedical Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She moved to the National Institute of Mental Health as a postdoctoral scholar, where she was eventually promoted to Unit Chief of Molecules in the Neurobiology Unit.[3]
Research and career
Weickert studies the neurobiological mechanisms that underpin psychiatric disease. She investigates the cellular and molecular-level changes that take place in the brains of people suffering from schizophrenia. In 2010, she moved to Neuroscience Research Australia,[4] where she leads the translational research team.[2] She was appointed to the Board of the Schizophrenia International Research Society in 2012.[4]
Weickert looks to understand the relationship between brain inflammation and psychiatric disorders, and uses this understanding to develop personalised treatment.[5] She has shown that people with schizophrenia who have more brain inflammation have more complex neuropathologies, including more cortical thinning and poorer cognition.[1]
Weickert has contributed extensively to the understanding of schizophrenia. She has uncovered the impact of neurodevelopment on schizophrenia, in particular the role of blunted neuroplasticity, and disturbances in the brain-derived neurotrophic factor and estrogen receptor.[3] Her work revealed that postnatal recruitment of cortical inhibitory neurons is abnormal in people with schizophrenia.[6]
Weickert was awarded the 2016 Biological Psychiatry Australia Isaac Schweitzer Award.[3] In 2021, she was awarded the Schizophrenia International Research Society Outstanding Translational Research Awardee.[2]
