Nadine Melhem PhD

Dr. Melhem’s background is in psychiatric epidemiology and statistical genetics, and her research focuses on the neurobiology of stress response and suicide across the spectrum of psychopathology. She has extensive experience in conducting longitudinal studies and applying advanced modeling techniques characterizing offspring of parents with mood disorder and their increased risk for suicidal behavior; studying the impact of parental bereavement and parental cancer diagnosis on children’s biological responses to stress and future risk for psychopathology; and looking at the HPA axis and inflammatory pathways at the peripheral and the brain levels using PET imaging in acutely suicidal patients. Her work is the first to characterize the phenomenology of grief in children and to develop an instrument and a screen to assess and monitor grief reactions in children; to identify a distinct HPA axis profile in suicide attempters compared to other high-risk subjects; to characterize variability in depression symptoms as predictors for suicide attempt; and develop a prediction risk score for suicide attempt. She has also participated in the study of the genetics of several brain phenotypes. She is the Principal investigator of 3 NIMH R01 grants and has been the recipient of 2 R21s and a K01 award from NIMH, and several young investigator awards from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD), the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation, and the Pittsburgh Foundation.