Molecular

Platform Leadership

Gustavo Turecki, MD, PhD
Jane Foster, PhD

Platform Management

Bianca Wollenhaupt de Aguiar, PhD
Germaine Lowe, PhD

Active Sites

The Molecular Platform operates at the following research sites:

• McGill University (Montreal, Quebec)
• McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario)

Collaborating Research Institutions:

• University of Texas Southwestern (Dallas, Texas)

Platform Overview

The Molecular Platform examines biological samples such as blood and urine collected through CAN-BIND’s clinical studies. These samples allow researchers to study molecular factors, including DNA, RNA, proteins, and other biological markers, and to investigate how they may relate to depression and treatment response. This work helps build a better understanding of the biological processes underlying depression, how they vary across individuals, and how they change over the course of treatment.

By identifying measurable molecular signals associated with treatment outcomes, this research also supports the long-term goal of developing simple objective tests that could help monitor treatment response in clinical settings. These types of tools could eventually complement existing clinical assessments by providing more consistent and quantifiable measures of change over time, improving both diagnosis and treatment monitoring.

The Molecular Platform investigates a range of biological domains, including genomics, inflammatory markers, metabolic profiling, and targeted genetic analyses, with a focus on their relationships to depression, antidepressant response, and remission.