POTSDAM -- Research Assistant Professor Alisa Woods of the Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Science at Clarkson University has been awarded the 10th annual Hanse Prize for Psychiatry for her neuropsychiatric research on biomarkers.

Woods was the keynote speaker at the 10th annual Hansesymposium: Mental Health Across the Lifespan: Molecular Biology and Clinical Presentation of Neuropsychological Development last month at the University of Rostock in Germany.

Her talk, “Psychiatric Proteomics: Biomarkers for Neuropsychiatric Disorders,” featured research being conducted in the laboratory for proteomics and biochemistry at Clarkson in collaboration with Prof. Costel C. Darie, graduate students Izabela Sokolowska and Armand G. Ngounou Wetie, undergraduate student Kelly Wormwood, Prof. Jeanne Ryan of the Department of Psychology at SUNY Plattsburgh, Prof. Johannes Thome of Rostock University, and Prof. Edward Dudley of Swansea University, United Kingdom.

The work includes the identification of biomarkers for autistic spectrum disorder and descriptions of TDF, a new protein found in the central nervous system. Woods' talk was sponsored by the University of Rostock and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Woods received her bachelor of science degree in psychology from SUNY Plattsburgh, her Ph.D. in psychobiology, neurobiology and behavior from University of California, Irvine, and her master of science in mental health counseling from the University of Massachusetts.