The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center has announced a $10 million gift in support of research efforts to improve treatment options for psychosis.

The gift will create an endowed chair within the department and will support clinical programming and translational research, enabling researchers to engage and track patients for longer periods of time to gain insight into positive and negative treatment outcomes with the potential to extend the lives of those with psychotic disorders. The donor, who made the gift anonymously, is a family member of a loved one with schizophrenia.

"Seeing firsthand the devastation of the effects that these diseases have on not just the individual, but the whole family, I believe we need to try anything possible to help alleviate the pain of these experiences," said the donor. "We keep hoping that something will come along that helps slow the progression of psychotic disorders. If we can work with patients through their first episodes so we can hopefully prevent future ones, that will be the key to improving lives."