Briggs Trust Donates $436,000 for Schizophrenia Research at UAMS
| Jan. 3, 2018 | A gift of $436,000 will allow the Psychiatric Research Institute at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) to fund additional research into schizophrenia, a serious mental disorder that can cause hallucinations, delusions and a loss of touch with reality.
The donation from the Caroline T. Briggs Charitable Trust was delivered Dec. 19 by representatives of the trust and Simmons Bank to Pedro Delgado, M.D., director of the institute and chairman of the Department of Psychiatry in the UAMS College of Medicine.
“We are very grateful for this gift, which I think will go a long way toward making a difference in the lives of people with schizophrenia,” said Delgado. “This will allow us to develop a program that focuses on an area where, until now, we’ve had a gap in our research portfolio. We will be able to bring in some new researchers in the field as well as involve some of our younger faculty members to grow this program.”
Briggs, a native of Pine Bluff, passed away in 2016 at the age of 92. The trust is overseen by Simmons Bank. The bank’s Cathy Brazeale, a vice president and trust officer, and Laura Parrish, a trust officer, represented the Briggs trust during the presentation. Brazeale and Parrish later toured the institute to learn more about its research efforts. Among the sites they visited were the transcranial magnetic stimulation suite, the Walker Family Clinic and the Brain Imaging Research Center.
According to the National Institutes of Health, about 1 in 100 people in the United States have schizophrenia, which affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves.
UAMS is the state’s only health sciences university, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a main campus in Little Rock; a Northwest Arkansas regional campus in Fayetteville; a statewide network of regional campuses; and eight institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Psychiatric Research Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Translational Research Institute, Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and the Institute for Community Health Innovation. UAMS includes UAMS Health, a statewide health system that encompasses all of UAMS’ clinical enterprise. UAMS is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has 3,275 students, 890 medical residents and fellows, and five dental residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 12,000 employees, including 1,200 physicians who provide care to patients at UAMS, its regional campuses, Arkansas Children’s, the VA Medical Center and Baptist Health. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com. Find us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube or Instagram.###