• B.Sc. Chemistry, Biochemistry 1965-1968 Hebrew University, Jerusalem
• M.Sc. Medical Sciences/Biochemistry 1968-1970, Hebrew University Medical School, Jerusalem.
• Ph.D. 1980-1984, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva 
• B.S.W. 1989-1995, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva

• Bipolar disorder and its treatment
• The possible involvement of mitochondrial dysfunction in the etiology of neuropsychiatric disorders
• Mechanism of mood stabilization
• Interaction among neuroinflammation, brain mitochondrial function and brain autophagy

• The etiology of bipolar disorder
• The molecular mechanism of mood stabilization
• The possible involvement of autophagy in mood stabilization
• Will exposure to chronic hot ambient temperature exacerbate mental illness quantitatively or qualitatively

• 1: Belmaker RH, Agam G, 2008. Major Depressive Disorder. New Engl J Med, Mechanisms of Disease 358:47-60. An invited review.
• 2: Agam G, Bersudsky Y, Berry GT, Moechars D, Lavi-Avnon Y, Belmaker RH 2009. Knockout mice in understanding the mechanism of action of lithium. Biochem Soc Trans. 37:1121-5.
• 3: Amar S, Ovadia O, Maier W, Ebstein R, Belmaker RH, Mishmar D, Agam G, 2010. Copy number variation of the SELENBP1 gene in schizophrenia. Behav Brain Funct 6:40.
• 4: Bromberg A, Levine J, Belmaker R, Agam G, 2011. Hyperhomocysteinemia does not affect global DNA methylation and nicotinamide N-methyltransferase expression in mice. J Psychopharmacol. 25(7):976-81.
• 5: Belmaker R, Bersudsky Y, Agam G, 2012. Individual differences and evidence-based psychopharmacology. BMC Med. 10:110.
• 6: Toker L, Bersudsky Y, Plaschkes I, Chalifa-Caspi V, Berry GT, Buccafusca R, Moechars D, Belmaker RH, Agam G, 2014. Inositol-related Gene knockouts mimic lithium's effect on mitochondrial function. Neuropsychopharmacology 39:319-28.
• 7: Agam G, Azab AN. Whether lithium inhibits glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3?
  activity in vivo in humans is still an open question. Bipolar Disord. 2016
  Aug;18(5):464-7. doi: 10.1111/bdi.12414. Epub 2016 Jul 21. PubMed PMID: 27440170.
• 8: Toker L, Agam G. Mitochondrial dysfunction in psychiatric morbidity: current
  evidence and therapeutic prospects. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat. 2015 Sep
  24;11:2441-7. doi: 10.2147/NDT.S70346. eCollection 2015. Review. PubMed PMID:
  26442764; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4590577.
• 9: Agam G. Current hypotheses of lithium's mechanism of action as a
  neuropsychiatric medication. ACS Chem Neurosci. 2014 Jun 18;5(6):410. doi:
  10.1021/cn5001183. PubMed PMID: 26054372; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4063505.
• 10: Agam G, Almog O. Calbindin D28k and S100B have a similar interaction site with
  the lithium-inhibitable enzyme inositol monophosphatase-1: a new drug target
  site. J Med Chem. 2015 Feb 26;58(4):2042-4. doi: 10.1021/jm5019324. Epub 2015 Feb
  16. PubMed PMID: 25665147.
• 11: Kara N, Narayanan S, Belmaker RH, Einat H, Vaidya VA, Agam G. Chronic Lithium
  Treatment Enhances the Number of Quiescent Neural Progenitors but Not the Number
  of DCX-Positive Immature Neurons. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol. 2015 Jan
  29;18(7):pyv003. doi: 10.1093/ijnp/pyv003. PubMed PMID: 25636892; PubMed Central
  PMCID: PMC4540105.
• 12: Merenlender-Wagner A, Malishkevich A, Shemer Z, Udawela M, Gibbons A, Scarr E,
  Dean B, Levine J, Agam G, Gozes I. Autophagy has a key role in the
  pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Mol Psychiatry. 2015 Feb;20(1):126-32. doi:
  10.1038/mp.2013.174. Epub 2013 Dec 24. PubMed PMID: 24365867; PubMed Central
  PMCID: PMC4320293.
• 13: Toker L, Bersudsky Y, Plaschkes I, Chalifa-Caspi V, Berry GT, Buccafusca R,
  Moechars D, Belmaker RH, Agam G. Inositol-related gene knockouts mimic lithium's
  effect on mitochondrial function. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2014 Jan;39(2):319-28.
  doi: 10.1038/npp.2013.194. Epub 2013 Aug 8. PubMed PMID: 23924600; PubMed Central
  PMCID: PMC3870788.
• 14: Agam G, Israelson A, 2014 Why lithium studies for ALS treatment should not be halted prematurely. Front Neurosci. 8:267.
• 15: Toker L, Agam G, Lithium, Inositol and Mitochondria. ACS Chem Neurosci. 5:411-2, 2014.
  10: Merenlender–Wagner A, Malishkevich A, Scarr E, Dean B, Levine J, Agam G*, Gozes I*, 2015. Autophagy plays a key role in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Molecular Psychiatry, 20:126-32. *Co-corresponding authors
• 16: Kara N, Narayanan S, Belmaker RH, Einat H, Vaidya VA, Agam G, 2015. Chronic lithium treatment enhances the number of quiescent neural progenitors but not the number of DCX-positive immature neurons. Int J Neuropsychopharmacol. 18(7): pyv003.
• 17: Agam G, Azab AN 2016. Whether lithium inhibits glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3? activity in vivo in humans is still an open question. Bipolar Disord. 18(5):464-7. An invited paper.
• 18: Sade Y, Toker L, Kara NZ, Einat H, Rapoport S, Moechars D, Berry GT, Bersudsky Y, Agam G.  2016. IP3 accumulation and/or inositol depletion: two downstream lithium's effects that may mediate its behavioral and cellular changes. Transl Psychiatry. 6(12):e968.
• 19: Damri O, Agam G, Toker L. 2018. The choice of the normalizing gene as a possible artifactual cause of lithium-induced upregulation of Bcl-2. Sci. Rep. 8:6399.
• 20: Bilu C, Einat H, Barak O, Zimmet P, Vishnevskia-Dai V, Govrin A, Agam G, Kronfeld-Schor N. 2019. Linking type 2 diabetes mellitus, cardiac hypertrophy and depression in a diurnal animal model. Sci Rep. 9:11865.
• 21: Bar-Yosef T, Hussein W*, Itzhaki1 O, Damri O, Givon L, Marom C, Gurman V, Levine J, Bersudsky Y#, Agam G#, Ben-Shachar D#. 2020. Mitochondrial function parameters as a tool for tailored drug treatment of an individual with psychosis: a proof of concept study. Sci Reports, 10:12258. *equal contribution;#co-corresponding authors.
• 22: Agam G*, Taylor VZ*, Vainer E, Golan MH. 2020. The influence of choline treatment on behavioral and neurochemical autistic-like phenotype in Mthfr-deficient mice. Transl Psychiat, 10: 10.1038/s41398-020-01002-1. *equal contribution.
• 23: Damri O*, Asslih S*, Shemesh N, Daraushe A, Nuri O, Las G, Kara N, Einat H, Agam G. 2021. Using inhibitors of mitochondrial respiration complexes to model bipolar disorder-like characteristics. Transl Psychiat. 11(1):123.  *equal contribution.
• 24: Klionsky DJ,... Agam G,...et al, 2021. Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)1. Autophagy 17(1):1-382.
• 25: Natur S, Damri O, Agam G. 2021. Do autophagy enhancers/ROS scavengers alleviate consequences of mild mitochondrial dysfunction induced in neuronal-derived cells? Int. J. Mol. Sci. 22(11):5753.
• 26: Shvartsur R, Agam G,... Azab AN. 2021. Safety and efficacy of combined low-dose lithium and low-dose aspirin: a pharmacological and behavioral proof-of-concept study in rats. Pharmaceutics, 13, 1827.
• 27: Shvartsur R, Agam G, Uzzan S, Azab AN, 2022. Low-dose aspirin augments the anti-inflammatory effects of low-dose lithium in lipopolysaccharide-treated rats. Pharmaceutics, 14: 901.
• 28: Natur S, Damri O, Agam G. 2022. The Effect of Global Warming on Complex Disorders (Mental Disorders, Primary Hypertension, and Type 2 Diabetes). Int J Environ Res Public Health. 19:9398.
  

Grants

• 2014-2016         Grant (KAMIN), the Chief Scientist of the Israel Ministry of Economy (jointly with Prof. Dorit Ben-Shachar, Rambam Medical Center and the Technion) for the assessment of the mitochondrial profile in response to antipsychotic drugs as a tool for personalized medicine treatment of psychotic patients (schizophrenia and bipolar disorder) - NIS 1,200,000/2 years.
• 2015-2022         Grant, Israel Science Foundation (ISF) to investigate whether scavenging of reactive oxygen species (ROS) or autophagy/mitophagy enhancement, via amending mitochondrial function, can rescue respiratory mitochondrial dysfunction-induced neuropsychiatric-like phenotype, in general, and BPD-like pathophysiology as a private case – NIS 1,500,000/5 years.
• 2021-2023         Grant (KAMIN), Israel Innovation Authority (jointly with Prof. Dorit Ben-Shachar and Prof. Tomer Shlomi, Rambam Medical Center and the Technion and Prof. Mark Weizer, Sheba Medical Center and Tel-Aviv University) for Developing a bio-convergent approach for predicting a schizophrenia patient’s response to clozapine treatment based on an algorithm of personal details and mitochondrial metabolic biomarkers – BGU’s budget - NIS 518,472/2 years.

• Yuly Bersudsky – clinical and basic studies of the molecular mechanism of mood stabilization and the etiology of bipolar disorder.
• Abed Azab – neuroinflammation and mood stabilization.
• Hava Golan – treatment of autism in animal models.
• Dorit Ben-Shachar – personalized medicine in psychiatry