About

Dr. Perkins endeavors to move advances in evidenced-based practice from the research literature into clinical practice. For this reason, she founded, and is the Director of North Carolina Early Psychosis Intervention in North Carolina, a program that provides support to Coordinated Specialty Care Services for First Episode Psychosis in the State of North Carolina.

Her research includes investigations of predictors and mechanisms driving the development of psychotic disorders in persons experiencing high-risk symptoms. Working with colleagues in the US and abroad, she has discovered biomarkers for psychosis risk that enhance prediction and shed light on the biological pathways that contribute to the development of schizophrenia. She is especially interested in proteomic and genomic biomarkers for psychosis risk and the role that immune and redox system dysregulation may play in the development of schizophrenia. Currently, she collaborates with other researchers as a member of the Accelerating Medicines Partnership® Schizophrenia (AMP® SCZ), a public-private partnership that includes the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Medicines Agency, and multiple public and private organizations. The overall aim of the AMP® SCZ initiative is “to generate tools that will considerably improve success in developing early-stage interventions for patients who are at risk of developing schizophrenia.”  Her research has been continually funded by NIMH for over 20 years and has produced more than 300 peer-reviewed publications, with over 75,000 total citations (h-index 117, i10-index 326).