Dr. Dolores Malaspina is professor of Psychiatry, Neuroscience and Genetics & Genomics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, directing the psychosis research program. She was previously the Anita and Joseph Steckler Professor and Chairman of Psychiatry at New York University and the Bellevue Hospital Center where she founded and directed the Institute for Social and Psychiatric Initiatives (InSPIRES), a multidisciplinary translational research program. She received a Bachelor’s degree in environmental biology, mentored by Professor Lynn Margulis at Boston University, then attaining a Masters in Zoology and MD degrees from Rutgers University, before training in Psychiatry at New York State Psychiatric Institute (PI) and Columbia University. There she attained the rank of Professor, trained in Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health and launched the Schizophrenia Research Unit and Prodromal Research Program. Dr. Malaspina has received nearly continuous research support from the NIH over 3 decades and published hundreds of scientific papers and chapters. She first proposed and first demonstrated that there were large effects of advancing paternal age on the risk for schizophrenia, explaining the substantial impact of rare gene variants in its genetic architecture. She discovered increased regional (hippocampal) brain activity in psychosis more recently showed its underpinnings in neuroinflammation and the autonomic activity in the gut brain axis. Her career is also strongly directed towards mentoring beginning investigators, for which she and her mentees have received competitive funding. She has received awards for research, mentoring, service and clinical excellence over her career. She chaired the Research and Education Committee for the American Psychiatric Association’s Task Force of the Social Determinants of Mental Health. She also serves on the APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) steering committee. At Mount Sinai, she is the Vice Chair for DEI. Her work is also public facing, with a decade of experience hosting the two hour “Psychiatry Show” on the Sirius 114 “Doctor Radio” channel years. She has been, throughout, a clinician in active practice.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Malaspina D. What social determinants can tell us about schizophrenia. Schizophr Res. 2022 Dec 15:S0920-9964(22)00400-5. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2022.10.017. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36528441.
Malaspina D. From cytokines to climate and C-sections and from micronutrients to the microbiome: Neurodevelopment and the risk for psychosis. Schizophr Res. 2022 Sep;247:1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.schres.2022.02.008. Epub 2022 Apr 6. PMID: 35396142.
Conley D, Malaspina D. Socio-Genomics and Structural Competency. J Bioeth Inq. 2016 Jun;13(2):193-202. doi: 10.1007/s11673-016-9716-2. Epub 2016 Jun 1. PMID: 27251402.
Corcoran C, Mujica-Parodi L, Yale S, Leitman D, Malaspina D. Could stress cause psychosis in individuals vulnerable to schizophrenia? CNS Spectr. 2002 Jan;7(1):33-8, 41-2. doi: 10.1017/s1092852900022240. PMID: 15254447; PMCID: PMC2774708.
Corcoran C, Walker E, Huot R, Mittal V, Tessner K, Kestler L, Malaspina D. The stress cascade and schizophrenia: etiology and onset. Schizophr Bull. 2003;29(4):671-92. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.schbul.a007038. PMID: 14989406.
Kimhy D, Delespaul P, Ahn H, Cai S, Shikhman M, Lieberman JA, Malaspina D, Sloan RP. Concurrent measurement of “real-world” stress and arousal in individuals with psychosis: assessing the feasibility and validity of a novel methodology. Schizophr Bull. 2010 Nov;36(6):1131-9. doi: 10.1093/schbul/sbp028. Epub 2009 May 8. PMID: 19429846; PMCID: PMC2963047.
Mueller B, Robinson-Papp J, Suprun M, Suarez-Farinas M, Lotan E, Gonen O, Malaspina D. Baroreflex sensitivity is associated with markers of hippocampal gliosis and dysmyelination in patients with psychosis. Clin Auton Res. 2023 Mar 6. doi: 10.1007/s10286-023-00929-x. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36877302.
Landi I, Kaji DA, Cotter L, Van Vleck T, Belbin G, Preuss M, Loos RJF, Kenny E, Glicksberg BS, Beckmann ND, O’Reilly P, Schadt EE, Achtyes ED, Buckley PF, Lehrer D, Malaspina DP, McCarroll SA, Rapaport MH, Fanous AH, Pato MT, Pato CN, Bigdeli TB, Nadkarni GN, Charney AW. Prognostic value of polygenic risk scores for adults with psychosis. Nat Med. 2021 Sep;27(9):1576-1581. doi: 10.1038/s41591-021-01475-7. Epub 2021 Sep 6. PMID: 34489608; PMCID: PMC8446329.