EP 243: How BD² is using genetics and deep phenotyping to transform bipolar research with Cara Altimus and Ben Neale

This week on The Genetics Podcast, Patrick is joined by Dr. Cara Altimus, CEO of BD², and Dr. Benjamin Neale, Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. They discuss how rare variant discovery is opening new routes into bipolar disorder biology, how BD² is combining genetics with longitudinal multimodal data, and how patient priorities are shaping a research model focused on faster diagnosis and more precise treatments.

Show Notes

0:00 Intro to The Genetics Podcast

00:58 Welcome to Cara and Ben

01:57 The origin and aims of BD2 

04:20 Major knowledge gaps in bipolar disorder genetics

06:43 Using genetics and deep phenotyping to map bipolar disorder biology

13:47 Why bipolar disorder genetics needs both scale and deep clinical data

17:32 Finding the most predictive data for bipolar disorder biology and care

19:19 The search for scalable biomarkers in bipolar disorder

21:35 How BD² is building a bridge from discovery to clinical trials

26:48 Why bipolar diagnosis takes years and what patients want research to solve

33:08 How BD² is looking to other programs as inspiration to build a new research model

35:31 What overlapping risk genes reveal across bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and autism

37:40 How rare variants could de-risk precision psychiatry trials

41:25 How BD² is scaling from early milestones to global funder momentum

45:04 Closing remarks 

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• BD2