25 Years of Breakthroughs: 2007 Discovery of Tamoxifen as a Treatment for Bipolar Disorder

NARSAD Independent Investigator Grantees, Husseini Manji, M.D. and Carlos Zarate, M.D. discovered that a common breast cancer drug called tamoxifen can also be used to treat symptoms of bipolar disorder during the manic phase of the illness. Tamoxifen was proven to be effective because it blocks kinase protein C (KPC), an enzyme regulating brain cell activity. The major benefit of this discovery is that this medication began working in a matter of days as opposed to other medications which had taken weeks to show positive effects.

Read a complete description of this research and the results from the NIMH

Read a scientific abstract of this research

Last year, Dr. Manji presented at the "New Approaches to Treatment of Depression and Bipolar Disorder" at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Learn more about this event and watch his presentation.

Recovery Story:
I Thought Maybe This Was Normal - this story offers hope to the nearly 3% of U.S. adults living with bipolar disorder. You'll meet Owen who was diagnosed with the illness as a child and today, thanks to the perseverance of his mother and a NARSAD Young Investigator Grantee, Owen's condition is stable and he is living a productive life as a college student at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).