Illinois Medicine

M PAVULURI'S SENSE OF PERSONAL MISSION BENEFACTORS SHARE ANI PAVULURI'S PASSION for her work researching and treat- ing pediatric mental illness is evident within minutes of meeting her. Ideas come in a rush as she speaks about the interrelation of emotion and cognition, genetics and environment, medication and psychotherapy. "My focus is to get things to make sense together. That's the only way we can make a difference for these children," she says. Pavuluri's keen intelligence and emotional attachment to her work both originated with her family. The daughter of professors of physics and English, Pavuluri grew up seeing her older sister go blind due to zerodermapigmentosa, a genetic condition, which instilled both an interest in medicine and a deep concern for helping children who were suffering. "I'm shaped by the profound impact her condition had on my entire family," Pavuluri acknowledges, her eyes watering. "That got me to worry about children who are misunderstood and mistreated." A native of southern India, Pavu- luri earned her MD and PhD, in devel- opmental psychopathology, from Otago University in New Zealand. She then came to Chicago for a postdoctoral fellowship in child psychiatry and mood disorders at Rush University Medical Center. Upon joining the University of Il- linois Department of Psychiatry in 2000, Pavuluri quickly distinguished herself as both a clinician and a scientist, es- tablishing the Pediatric Mood Disorders Clinic and undertaking novel research that has yielded nearly 70 journal articles and 13 book chapters. She has received numerous awards, including the National Institute of Mental Health Award for Excellence in Research. In October, Pavuluri was installed as the first Berger-Colbeth Term Chair in Child Psychiatry, which was endowed by Walter and Susan Berger and Doug- las and Margaret Colbeth; both couples had deeply personal reasons for doing so. Walter Berger is executive vice president and chief financial officer for Leap Wireless International, Inc., and Susan Berger is active in a number of health care-related charitable organiza- tions, including Mental Health America. Pavuluri has treated one of the Bergers' sons for bipolar disorder. "Dr. Pavuluri's phenomenal. She's the most compassionate, gifted woman I've ever met," Susan Berger says. "She puts science into service. She's making chain management services. A former high school and junior college English teacher, Margey Colbeth is an advocate for scholarships for students in need. Douglas Colbeth battled depression as a young adult and has lost extended family members to mental illness. His experience led the Colbeths to estab- lish the Colbeth Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic, which encompasses all the clinical activity within the UIC Institute of Juvenile Research, including the Pediatric Mood Disorders Clinic. "At that time, Mani was a young U P P E R L E F T: Pavuluri became the first Berger-Colbeth Term Chair in Child Psychia- try, endowed by Walter and Susan Berger and Douglas and Margaret Colbeth. A B O V E : "Their contributions will go toward hiring top-flight scientists to help build on the BRAIN Center's innovative scientific strate- gies," Pavuluri says of her benefactors. "I am extremely grateful for their generosity." remarkable strides and advances in understanding how the brain's wired and its implications for the medication of children, all the things she's putting together. Walter and I felt it was really important to support her work." Douglas Colbeth is president, chairman and chief executive officer of Kinaxis, a privately held company that provides on-demand supply researcher, and in the last 10 years we've watched her research progress and seen phenomenal results from the work she's done there for kids, many of whom we know personally," Douglas Colbeth says. "We want to support her research efforts, and we want to continue to be part of the whole psychiatry efforts at UIC." "I thank the Bergers and the Colbeths from the bottom of my heart," Pavuluri says. "Every dollar they've given is extremely valuable to developing the infrastructure of the BRAIN Center. Their contributions will go toward hiring top-flight scientists to help build on the BRAIN Center's innovative scientific strategies to help children with mental disorders, and I am extremely grateful for their generosity." rate and combined sessions with the child and parents, incorporates games and other activities. "There's a lot of emphasis on building com- munications skills and interpersonal problem-solving, learning impor- tant skills that have to do with making and sustaining relationships," says Amy West, PhD, director of the BRAIN Center's Pediatric Interven- tion Research in Affect Dysregulation and Mood Disorders Laboratory. The RAINBOW program also emphasizes educating parents about their child's disease to clear up misunderstandings and reassure them about their ability to help their child. "It was truly eye-opening," says Gretchen Lynch, who has taken part in the RAINBOW program with her husband, Patrick, and their 10-year-old daughter. "You stop wanting things from your child and understand what your child needs from you." The RAINBOW program is internationally known—it's provided the model for a program in Sweden and drawn visitors from Portugal and Spain to observe its techniques. Pavuluri and her colleagues want to make the program's approach more widely available, but first they need scientific evidence of the effectiveness they've observed on a case-by-case basis. West's PIRAMD lab has begun a study that will compare the out- comes of children who participate in the RAINBOW program, which has a specific methodology for each session, with those who receive routine psychotherapy elsewhere. "There are very few psychosocial treatments of kids with bipolar disorders," West observes. "Clinicians who are working with these popu- lations are just dying for a structured, evidence-based approach. We're racing to get the science done so we can disseminate it more broadly." The PIRAMD study serves as another example of the BRAIN Center's effort to put the treatment of pediatric mental illness on a more solid foundation of scientific knowledge. "We love to go to the roots of neuroscience," Pavuluri says, "and we love to use it to deliver treatment for patients." 22 | WINT ER 2 011 PHOTOS: KATIE MARCHETTI

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