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Sabina Franklyn realized that she wanted to do a deep dive into depression research during her undergraduate studies at University of Ottawa. Her honours work involved studying mental health and food security in vulnerable populations but it was the mental health-related aspect of her thesis that set the direction for her research, and ultimately, her career.
Franklyn, a second year master’s student in psychology at Carleton University, is one of the recipients of this year’s IMHR Graduate Student Research Award. The award, given out annually, honours top students at the Royal’s Institute of Mental Health Research (IMHR) whose work has a special focus on depression and education.
Franklyn was recognized for her graduate research, which looks at variability within depression and attempts to gain a better understanding by considering the impact of an individual’s biological differences and experiences.
“Despite the prevalence and impact of depression, there hasn’t been a lot of progress in research in recent years, and there are theories as to why that is,” says Franklyn.
“Depression looks really different from person to person, so why do we think that one treatment could work for all? That might be a reason why treatments haven’t been as effective as we’d like them to be.”
One of the challenges of treating mental illness is the “hit or miss” approach with medication. Medication for depression can take weeks to take effect and if it doesn’t work, more time is needed to wean off of it and try a different prescription. Side effects are also a concern.
That’s why researchers like Franklyn are taking novel approaches in studying how specific biomarkers found in the blood such as immune messaging molecules (i.e. pro- inflammatory cytokines) among others – and diverse experiences such as childhood trauma and other interpersonal factors – affect our biology. It’s hoped that new findings will help characterize depressive subtypes, and that individuals within these subtypes will eventually benefit from specific and targeted therapies and get better, faster.
“If you look at a sample of people with major depressive disorder (MDD), there are so many differences between them, in terms of symptoms being expressed, in terms of individual experiences, even their biomarker profiles,” says Franklyn. “Research has been indicating that a personalized strategy – considering symptoms that have been expressed – is the way to go in this area.”
“I’m doing work that will hopefully inform treatment outcomes for everyone, so that’s a huge motivating factor for me,” says Franklyn, who was grateful for the opportunity to meet the donors who underwrite the Graduate Student Research Awards at a special event held at The Royal in November.
Franklyn plans to use the funds from the award to attend a Society of Biological Psychiatry conference in 2020.
“It’s an amazing opportunity to showcase the research going on at The Royal, and I want to learn from the keynote speakers and the other people speaking in the area of variability and hopefully take some of their approaches back to The Royal.”
Franklyn, who hopes to pursue her PhD studies at The Royal, anticipates the conference will inspire the next phase of her research.
Sabina Franklyn is supervised by Dr. Robyn McQuaid, a scientist in the Culture and Gender Research Unit and recipient of the IMHR’s Emerging Research Innovators in Mental Health (eRIMh) incubator program; and Dr. Kim Matheson, the Culture and Gender Mental Health Research Chair at the IMHR and Carleton University.
What’s a biomarker?
“The best way to think about a biomarker is something that we can measure in the body in a quantitative, objective, way,” says Dr. Zachary Kaminsky, DIFD-Mach Gaensslen Chair in Suicide Prevention Research at The Royal’s Institute of Mental Health Research (IMHR).
“One of the reasons biomarkers are a hot topic in mental health research is that biomarkers destigmatize mental illness. There is a biology to these diseases and if we measure something in the body, or the brain chemical processes, or on the DNA and it is associated with the disease, it shows that mental illness is not all in your head.
“In psychiatry, we don’t have a lot of biomarkers. Doctors don’t have tests in psychiatry nearly as much as other fields of medicine. That’s why biomarkers are exciting in mental illness right now. They give a new hope that might help transform care.”