International / Bioplar Disorder Category

Title of Winning Proposal: MRI/MRS Study of Valproate Effects in Drug-Naïve Bipolar Patients

Dr. E. Serap Monkul graduated from Hacettepe University School of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey. She completed her psychiatry residency training in December 2004 at Dokuz Eylul University School of Medicine.

Dr. Monkul spent two years as a post-doctoral research fellow on brain imaging in mood disorders, under Dr. Jair Soares’ mentoring at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA).

She currently holds a part-time post-doctoral affiliation with UTHSCSA to conduct a research project entitled “Brain myelin integrity in bipolar disorder: an in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study” for which she received a NARSAD Young Investigator Award in 2004. Dr. Monkul is involved in various national and international research projects studying biological and psychological correlates of mood and anxiety disorders. She is also the recipient of 2004 SOBP Eli Lilly Travel Fellowship Award and 2004 Turkish Psychiatric Association Ismet Karacan Young Investigator Award.

Dr. Monkul is currently a first year student at the Masters in Affective Neuroscience Program, jointly awarded by the Universities of Maastricht and Florence, and endorsed by the Bristol and Tel Aviv Universities and the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry.