Depression Grand Challenge

The UCLA Depression Grand Challenge collaborated with a consortium led by The Digital Health Measurement Collaborative Community (DATAcc) by the Digital Medicine Society (DiMe) to submit a proposal to Wellcome, a global charitable organization that funds discovery research, for the opportunity to conduct scoping research to assess how digital sensing technologies may be leveraged to detect and treat mental health conditions.

Today the UCLA Depression Grand Challenge launches a new website. The site features details about the DGC research and dissemination objectives, corresponding studies and projects, the unique operational playbook, organizational structure including stakeholders and advisors, values, recent news, and history of key milestones.

The UCLA Depression Grand Challenge releases STAND Tips, a web-based toolkit available to everyone that provides effective strategies to help manage common stress, anxiety and grief, especially during periods of hardship or following traumatic events.

 Wellcome, a global charitable organization that funds discovery research, issued a request for proposals to extend the work of the digital sensing workshop, hosted at UCLA and co-sponsored by Wellcome and the National Institute of Mental Health in March 2023.

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block announced he plans to step down from the helm of UCLA at the end of this school year, a post he has held for 17 years. Block, a neurobiologist, was particularly invested in the DGC to understand and better treat depression.

When UCLA introduced an important new health resource this year for its students, Be Well Bruin, which included the STAR program as a key resource, the STAND program reached an important milestone — integration of the program into campus operations.

UCLA Depression Grand Challenge Executive Director Michelle Popowitz co-led a three-hour workshop at the 2023 NORDP ReCON: ForwaRD! national conference this month. The workshop, “Leveraging Campus-Scale Initiatives to Advance RD Goals: The Case Study of Grand Challenges,” featured thought leaders who had been the first to lead campus-wide grand challenge-type programs at their universities.

Timed with the end of her first year in the role, the UCLA Newsroom reported on DGC Co-Director Michelle Craske’s activities as the inaugural Kevin Love Fund Centennial Chair.

Elaine Hsiao, PhD, director of the UCLA Goodman–Luskin Microbiome Center and an expert on the ways in which the gut microbiome influences neurobiology, has been awarded funding by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to lead a new maternal mental health research study.

The UCLA Depression Grand Challenge STAND for All program has been featured by the Mental Health Coalition as a top resource for college students in its inaugural College Student Mental Health Toolkit. The MHC designed and launched the toolkit for the start of the 2023 school year to equip college students with reliable resources, services and support needed to thrive as they transition into adult life.