When Dr. Kafui Dzirasa speaks to the families of those diagnosed with mental illness, he understands first-hand what they are going through.
“This real challenge of understanding the brain and understanding mental illness is a quest to heal my friends, my family, my colleagues and our nation,” Dzirasa said during a speech where he talked about having all three – friends, families and colleagues – diagnosed with mental illness.
While it has been 10 years since that talk, the A. Eugene and Marie Washington Presidential Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences remains committed to understanding neuropsychiatric illness.
Dzirasa is the first African American to complete a Ph.D. in neurobiology at Duke. He also earned his M.D. at Duke in 2009 and completed residency training in general psychiatry in 2016.
He was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers that same year. It is the highest honor the federal government gives outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers.
During an interview last year with Medical School Dean Mary Klotman, Dzirasa discussed how his interest in engineering and mental illness cross-pollinate in his research.
His Laboratory for Psychiatric Neuroengineering at Duke focuses on how genetic variants interact with environmental factors (including stress and drugs of abuse) to lead to mental illness. He also is interested in how mechanisms in neural circuits underpin emotional behavior. He aims to design a pacemaker for the brain that can regulate the electrical signals underlying mental disorders.
He also is passionate about enhancing diversity in STEM.
“As we create tools and therapeutics, we want to make sure they apply to everybody. Having this perspective early on is a big part of shaping the techniques and technologies down the line,” he told Klotman.
