A new study recruiting almost 50,000 adults living with severe mental illnesses has been launched to ‘transform’ understanding of the conditions.
Eligible adults living with bipolar, schizophrenia, psychosis or major depression in England and Wales are being invited to join the three-year study, known as GlobalMinds.
A total of 49,000 people with mental illnesses are being sought, with 2,000 already enrolled and NHS DigiTrials inviting further eligible patients. Another 1,000 people with dementia will also be included in the study.
Patients will be sent at-home sampling kits to provide blood or saliva samples. Researchers will analyse participants’ DNA alongside detailed questionnaires to identify factors that may increase the risk and severity of serious mental health conditions.
The study is led by mental health data science company Akrivia Health Ltd in partnership with Cardiff University.
Dr Adrian James, NHS England’s national medical director for mental health and neurodiversity, said the study ‘could transform our understanding of severe mental illness and lead to the dawn of a new era of personalised treatments for patients’.
Support has been provided by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), as well as funding from the Wellcome Trust and Johnson & Johnson.
GlobalMinds’ chief investigator, Professor James Walters from Cardiff University, said the project ‘provides an unprecedented opportunity to uncover and identify the many personal and biological factors behind mental health conditions’.
Professor Walters said it will support both patients and clinicians to facilitate ‘earlier and more precise diagnosis’, as well as ‘making available optimum treatments’.
He said GlobalMinds would be ‘the first large-scale dataset linking both genetic and detailed routine clinical information’.
Brian Dow, deputy chief executive of charity Rethink Mental Illness, which is supporting the initiative, added: ‘The strength of the study lies in the partnership between researchers, the NHS and charities like ours, which means data can be powerfully fused with lived experience, with the voices of people experiencing mental illness remaining front and centre.’
Last December, the Mental Health Act 2025 became law after receiving Royal Assent, introducing wide-ranging reforms to how people in mental health crisis are treated.
In January, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) called for a ‘system-wide approach’ to mental health care, following its annual report on the use of the Mental Health Act.
