Human Practices
The main aim of our effort in human practices is to reduce the stigma around mental health problems by creating awareness about the physical causes of disorders such as depression and anxiety. Our lab work focuses on the connection between the gut microbiota and the brain to tackle mental diseases. Therefore, we are directly tackling this misconception.
What our plan is
We are talking to people who work in mental health charities, people suffering from mental health issues, practitioners and scientists to find out more. We also want to use the opportunity to create awareness for the mind-gut connection which is quite a nascent field of research. This helps us make our project relevant to patients.
We organize events in collaboration with artists, museums and mental health organisations in order to start a dialogue with people outside the lab and incorporate their ideas into our project. So far, we have noticed two aspects that need to be considered. One is that a lot of research is not accessible to people due to technical language and jargon. This barrier needs to be overcome to tackle prejudices and to help patients understand their condition.
Secondly, we realized that patients taking medication ,e.g. for depression, have to increase their dose in regular intervals. This is an issue we need to consider when building a genetic circuit that responds to triggers of mental illness in the gut.
Who we are working with
Dragon - Cafe, Mental Fight Club
We are organising an event together with the mental fight club in Borough, London. We are going to give a presentation and do a Q&A about our project in this weekly cafe in south London which is open to all, but especially caters to those struggling with problems such as depression or patients from St. Thomas Hospital.
YoungMinds UK
We are in contact with this mental health charity to widen our horizons about mental health issues especially in young people, such as students and to plan an event where we can engage directly with them and to present our own project.