NAMI Ask the Expert: Advancing Schizophrenia Research - Integrating Lived Experience and Scientific Progress in the AMP SCZ I

Course overview

This course, based on the Ask the Expert webinar series by the NAMI, explains how the Accelerating Medicines Partnership Schizophrenia (AMP SCZ) unites people with lived experience, advocacy groups, federal agencies, academia, and industry to accelerate discovery for clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis and schizophrenia. The presentation examines the program's public-private/open-science model, large longitudinal cohort design across 40+ global sites, and its multimodal biomarker strategy. The course, with an intended audience of social workers, psychologists, marriage and family therapists, and counselors, then presents ethical and practical considerations of co-design with lived-experience leaders are emphasized, alongside early insights informing upcoming proof-of-principle clinical trials. Additionally, the presentation illuminates AMP SCZ's location within the recent literature on CHR-P assessment, digital markers, and negative symptoms to support evidence-based early intervention and prevention efforts.