Ashley Wazana, MD, FRCP, MSc (Epi)

Dr. Ashley Wazana is a senior FRQS clinician-scientist in the Department of Psychiatry at the Jewish General Hospital. He runs a developmental research benchside to bedside laboratory. His goals are to understand the interplay of complex developmental factors (biological and environmental) in the emergence and treatment response of psychopathology. Specifically there are four axes of research:

• Developmental Research in Early Adversity Mental health BIological susceptibility and Gender (DREAM BIG) research project. This collaboration of seven prenatal cohorts examines the complex interplay between children’s genetic makeup and their earliest environment (the environment in which they develop during pregnancy) in the prediction of mental illness. We are interested in how the early environment, such as parental care in the early years, stressors and social support influence this trajectory.
• We are reconsenting the MAVAN cohort to examine in an adult cohort (MAVAN-R), developmental factors starting with early prenatal and developmental influences, outcomes, of mental wellbeing, mental disorders and resilience in adulthood.
• Computational innovation and novel methods for modeling complex developmental models which includes large numbers of datapoints of varying modalities of assessment (genetic, imaging, phenotype, environment). This includes machine learning approaches.
• Our clinical work includes identifying in clinical populations (Children in Child Psychiatric Day Hospitalizations, Suicidal Adolescents followed up after Emergency Hospital Care) a index of treatment response and sensitivity to inform early intervention and treatment. This includes embedding markers of treatment response in an electronic Patient response Outcome Measure platform (ePROM) and co-leading a national DOHaD taskforce to develop an bedside index of susceptibility to mental disorders and wellbeing.