July 2026 Awards and Accolades

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Candace Lewis, assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences and the Department of Psychology, received a prestigious award from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to advance groundbreaking research in precision mental health and psychedelic science.

Lewis and her interdisciplinary team are launching a first-of-its-kind project that will collect biological samples and speech data from four clinical trials investigating MDMA, psilocybin and LSD as treatments for PTSD and depression. The project will bring together researchers from the School of Life Sciences, Department of Psychology, College of Health Solutions, the School of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering, along with collaborators at Definium Therapeutics, Sunstone Therapies and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. One of these studies, the VA's PIVOT trial, is expected to be the largest psychedelic clinical trial conducted in veterans to date.

Using genetics, epigenetics, protein analysis and advanced machine learning, the team aims to identify the biological signatures that predict who will experience the safest and most durable treatment responses. Their findings could help pave the way for more personalized approaches to treating mental health conditions.

For Lewis, this award represents the culmination of over a decade of work. She entered the field of psychedelic science in 2015, despite being advised that funding opportunities were limited. Driven by a passion for answering difficult questions, she has spent the past 10 years building a precision psychiatry research program focused on uncovering the biological mechanisms underlying psychiatric symptoms. This ARPA-H award will enable her team to pursue novel questions at the intersection of precision medicine and psychedelic science, opening new possibilities for improving mental health care.