Author: [AUTHOR] Published on 10/1/2022 12:00:00 AM

Wei Yin, PhD, Senior Director, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Belmont, Massachusetts

What Are You Looking Forward to as a New Vice Chair of the Mental Health & Addiction Community?
I am very honored to be appointed as a new Vice Chair of the Mental Health & Addiction (MHA) Community. In this role, I look forward to working closely with the past Chair, Dr. Mary Peace McRae, the incoming Chair, Dr. Robert Stratford, and the other Community members to fulfill the goals of the Community. The prevalence of mental illness and addiction is high, not only in the United States but also worldwide—these illnesses and disorders are often chronic in nature. There are staggering consequences for the individual and society if these debilitating illnesses are left untreated. As a new Vice Chair, I look forward to working closely and diligently within the Community and with other ASCPT Communities to increase awareness in topics related to the treatment of mental health and addiction, to facilitate critical thinking on cutting-edge research and novel therapeutic approaches in this area, and to have an impact on research and development for these illnesses and disorders. With these efforts, I hope the MHA Community will attract more members and together fulfill the goal of this Community.

What Professional Accomplishment Are You Most Proud Of?
I am most proud to have had the opportunity to work on an antisense oligonucleotide platform and to contribute as a clinical pharmacologist to the approval of Spinraza, the first drug approved for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy, a rare, debilitating and sometimes fatal disease. It is also the first approved antisense oligonucleotide delivered intrathecally to reach directly at a target in the CNS. The review article I wrote on this new modality “Targeting RNA: A Transformative Therapeutic Strategy” is of special interest to the readers and was one of the top-cited articles in Clinical and Translational Science (CTS) in 2020 and 2021.

Do You Have a Favorite Tip or Trick for Clinical Practice or Research That You Want to Share with Fellow Members?
Be curious and there is always something new to learn. Go deep AND go broad.

When You Are Not Working, How Do You Spend Your Time?
While not working, I like to read on a variety of subjects, such as mental health or disorders and treatment of the illnesses, neuroscience and brain development, genes and gene therapy, the teenage brain (I have young children, including a teenage daughter), artificial intelligence, big data, and other compelling books such as Bad Blood by John Carreyrou and Red Roulette by Desmond Shum. My reading list also includes memoirs such as Becoming by Michelle Obama, A Promised Land, Dreams from My Father, and The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama, When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, to name a few. I found these memoirs personal, insightful, and inspiring. I am also a fan of science fiction novels by Cixin Liu, who presents a broad perspective on humanity's imagined future in his books.

Dr. Yin has been a member of ASCPT since 2016.