About Us

Our Mission

The need for precision medicine in psychiatry is propelled by the ever-increasing urgency to help our patients with the enormous social, emotional, medical, and financial burden of mental illness by closing the gap between research and clinical practice. Our mission is to create a new way to connect each patient with the specific therapeutic treatments they need by using advances in science, technology, and highly personalized medical information, such as individual variability in genes and environment, to diagnose and treat significant mental health conditions. 

Precision medicine is personalized medicine used to predict with more accuracy which strategies and treatments will work best for each patient. Our understanding of the underlying neurobiological mechanisms that cause psychiatric disorders will change the nature of new research into treatments.  And our strengths in translational neuroscience will enable us to develop the foundations for treatments that can target the specific mechanisms to alter the path of the disease and reduce suffering for millions around the world.

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Center for Precision Psychiatry & Mental Health at Columbia University was established through a $75 million grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, an international philanthropic organization, as part of SNF's Global Health Initiative (GHI) and we are grateful for their support of this important mission.

Our Vision

At the SNF Center, we envision a time in the near future when mental illness is treated in novel, targeted, and tailored ways, based on a new understanding of how mental illness develops and persists, unique to each individual. Our mission is to apply advances in neuroscience, technology and precision medicine to psychiatry, the SNF Center will create breakthroughs that further our understanding of the biological causes and underpinnings of mental illness and discover treatments for alleviating suffering from conditions previously considered untreatable. By addressing biological causes, and identifying genetic and other biological markers, the SNF Center will eliminate the stigma of mental illnesses and address societal disparities by ensuring equitable access to breakthrough Precision Psychiatry treatments.

For more information, please contact us at snfcenter@cumc.columbia.edu.