Last updated on August 13th, 2026 at 08:34 pm
Last updated on August 13th, 2026 at 08:34 pm
Lithium Inflammation Psychiatry (LIP) Research Team
Meet the Research Team from the Lithium Inflammation Psychiatry (LIP) Study at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.
Meet the Lithium Inflammation Psychiatry (LIP) Research Team at Karolinska Institute
Lithium Inflammation Psychiatry Research Study
We are raising funds to support the Lithium-Inflammation Psychiatry (LIP) research study at the Karolinska Institute, renowned for hosting the Nobel Assembly and recognized as a global leader in neuroscience. The LIP Study is the first to investigate how low-dose nutritional lithium may enhance brain health, increase resilience, and regulate inflammation. Your donation will directly support this pioneering research and may help develop new evidence-based treatments for mental health and inflammation-related disorders.
Join us in advancing this important research. Your support will enable Dr. Sudhir Gadh and the Karolinska Institute team to make significant progress. Each contribution moves us closer to a future with safe, accessible treatments that improve lives. The public health impact of this research cannot be overstated. Personality disorders like BPD impose enormous costs on society – a recent study found that direct healthcare and productivity losses for BPD patients averaged $40,000 per patient, over 16 times higher than for matched individuals without BPD pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Much of this cost stems from chronic disability, repeated hospitalizations or crisis visits, and extensive medication use (often with side effects requiring additional care). Effective pharmaceutical treatments for this population remain limited. There is a critical need for treatments that are widely accessible, low-risk, and cost-effective. Early intervention with a targeted, low-risk treatment aims to reduce illness severity and subsequent healthcare costs for these patients.
Meet the LIP Research Team
- Dr. Sudhir Gadh MD is a psychiatrist, Karolinska Institute scientist, US Navy Commander, and founder of Third Element LLC.
- Dr. Lena Backlund MD, PhD has 40 years experience as a clinical psychiatrist. For the past 25 years, Dr. Backlund works at the Unit for Affective Disorders at Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge, Stockholm.
- Dr. Peder Bjorling is a Consultant psychiatrist and Psychotherapist specialized in personality disorders for over 15 years.
- Martin Schalling, MD, PhD is chairman of the board of the Swedish Fund for Mental health and a Board member of Suicide Zero in Sweden. He is a Founder of Care to Translate Inc, a company devoted to development of tools for medically correct translations, with users in over 190 countries. He is a board member and medical advisor for several companies and member of the editorial board of several journals. He was a founding member of the editorial board of Molecular Psychiatry.
Sudhir Gadh, MD
Dr. Sudhir Gadh is a board-certified psychiatrist, Commander in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps, and the principal investigator of the LIP Study on lithium and inflammation at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden—home of the Nobel Assembly. Dr. Gadh offers progressive psychiatric care that combines medication and therapy to help patients identify the core issues contributing to their mental health conditions. Dr. Gadh is the lead researcher on an international team from the Karolinska Institute (Sweden) with deep expertise in psychopharmacology and biological psychiatry. The Karolinska Institute team, based at one of the world’s leading psychiatric research centers, has pioneered studies on inflammation in psychiatry, including proteomic profiling of patients with first-episode psychosis and clinical trials of immune-modulating treatments, with the aim of informing biomarker and immunological analyses. The Karolinska team’s track record includes successful conduct of placebo-controlled trials in vulnerable psychiatric populations, high-impact publications on inflammation and mental health, and decades of collective experience in lithium research. Additionally, the partnership with Karolinska’s proteomics core facility guarantees state-of-the-art measurement of inflammatory markers with rigorous quality control. In summary, the team’s strong scientific background and institutional support provide confidence in the feasibility and integrity of the proposed study.
Martin Schalling, MD, PhD is a professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery and the Center for Molecular Medicine at Karolinska Institutet Professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery and the Center for Molecular Medicine at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital. He has an MD and a PhD degree from Karolinska Institutet. He was an EMBO postdoctoral fellow and a Fulbright Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Martin´s research aims to identify genetic factors that predispose to the development of neuropsychiatric and metabolic disorders. Martin has been responsible for 10 clinical trials, supervised 35 PhD students, and has authored over 350 scientific papers. His papers have been cited over 50,000 times, and his H-index is over 100. Martin has a strong track record as a leader in organizations outside academia. He has written over 20 public debate articles on society, healthcare, and science. He is the chairman of the board of Suicide Zero, a board member of the Swedish Mental Health Fund, and a board member of a large health care provider in Sweden (SLSO). He founded the startup company Care to Translate.
Lena Backlund, MD, PhD has 40 years of experience as a clinical psychiatrist, with the last 25 years spent at the Unit for Affective Disorders at Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge, Stockholm. Her dissertation in 2010 focused on the use of lithium in the treatment of bipolar disorder. In parallel with her clinical work, she is a member of Professor Martin Shalling’s research group at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery and the Center for Molecular Medicine at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. She has authored more than 40 scientific papers. She is one of the four founders of the Swedish Association for Bipolar Disorders, aiming to educate and update physicians’ knowledge of bipolar disorders and their treatment, with emphasis on the use of lithium. She is still an active researcher and supervises four doctoral students.
Dr. Peder Bjorling is a Consultant psychiatrist and Psychotherapist, specializing in personality disorders for 15 years. Medical Director of the Outpatient Clinic for Personality Disorders at Psykiatri Sydvast, Stockholm. Member of the Stockholm Region expert group on Personality Disorders. Previous board member of Suicide Zero. Founder of the Swedish resident psychiatrists’ organization STP. Author of a popular science book on narcissism and columnist on mental health in the daily newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.
Martin Schalling, MD, PhD is a professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery and the Center for Molecular Medicine at Karolinska Institutet Professor at the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery and the Center for Molecular Medicine at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital. He has an MD and a PhD degree from Karolinska Institutet. He was an EMBO postdoctoral fellow and a Fulbright Scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Martin´s research aims to identify genetic factors that predispose to the development of neuropsychiatric and metabolic disorders. Martin has been responsible for 10 clinical trials, supervised 35 PhD students, and has authored over 350 scientific papers. His papers have been cited over 50,000 times, and his H-index is over 100. Martin has a strong track record as a leader in organizations outside academia. He has written over 20 articles for public debate on society, healthcare, and science. He is the chairman of the board of Suicide Zero, a board member of the Swedish Mental Health Fund, and a board member of a large health care provider in Sweden (SLSO). He founded the startup company Care to Translate.