Neurochemical analyses are critical to identifying peripheral biological markers for various psychiatric disorders, as well as profiling psychiatric medications in terms of their pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties. A member of the Douglas Hospital Research Centre since 1987, N.M.K. Ng Ying Kin, PhD, is also the director of the Clinical Psychopharmacology Unit.

N.M.K. Ng Ying Kin collaborates on several ongoing research projects:

• Investigating schizophrenia and an array of neuroleptics
• The role of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in affective disorders and clinical trials of novel pharmacotherapeutics
• Eating disorders, their co-morbidity with alcoholism, and relevant genetics factors
• The involvement of various neurotransmitters in borderline personality disorder
• The profile of neurohormone secretions in age-related disorders
• The role of melatonin in psychiatric disorders.

With such a broad spectrum of research, it is not surprising that N.M.K. Ng Ying Kin has made valuable contributions within various research arenas:

• He has conducted laboratory diagnoses of various inherited neurological disorders (e.g. Batten Disease) and psychiatric disorders, including major depression and Alzheimer Disease
• He has also demonstrated an association of serotonin with different personality traits in eating disorders
• He has shown the usefulness of peripheral neurochemical measurements, as well as therapeutic drug monitoring, in evaluating treatment outcome with neuroleptics and antidepressants in multicentre international clinical trials.