Gerome Breen is a Professor of Psychiatric Genetics in the Department of Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London.

His research is built on the principle that progress in mental health research depends on partnership with the people it affects.

With Professor Thalia Eley, he co-leads the Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression (GLAD) study and he leads the UK Eating Disorders Genetics Initiative (EDGI-UK), the largest study of its kind in the world. Together these cohorts have enrolled over 65,000 volunteers willing to be re-contacted for future research. In 2025 GLAD received major new investment; Gerome now leads, with co-investigators across the UK, the Office for Life Sciences GLAD Mental Health Goals (GLAD-MHG) programme, a £10M+ national study recruiting 12,000 people with lived experience of depression to build the most detailed UK picture yet of how genetics, biology, and life experiences shape mental health and response to treatment. He also co-leads the NIHR BioResource Long Read Sequencing project, the UK's flagship psychiatric long-read whole-genome sequencing programme.

As Academic Director of King's Genomics, he oversees a high-throughput long-read sequencing facility and integrated genomics and biobank services that support academic and industry partners. He chairs the NIHR Mental Health BioResource, holds leadership roles in the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, has published over 400 papers (h-index >100).

His current portfolio spans UKRI, MRF, NIHR, and Wellcome Trust awards across depression, eating disorders, pharmacogenomics, and global mental health genomics, including the Wellcome Trust-funded DepGenAfrica programme with Professor Solomon Teferra at Addis Ababa University. He actively welcomes industry collaboration on target discovery, stratified trials, pharmacogenomics, and biomarker development.

Research interests

• Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders
• Whole-genome sequencing and structural variant analysis (short- and long-read)
• Polygenic risk scores and pharmacogenomics
• Large-scale cohort design, biobanking, and recontactable research infrastructure
• Multi-omics integration (genomics, metabolomics, digital phenotyping)
• Psychiatric Genomics Consortium analyses across mood and eating disorders
• Global mental health genomics (DepGenAfrica)

Teaching

General psychiatric genetics teaching across multiple courses.

Expertise and public engagement

Gerome frequently takes part in radio and TV on psychiatric genetics and as a consulted expert by the media when new findings come out.

• Media commentary on psychiatric genetics and eating disorders (BBC Radio 4, Sky News, Times Radio, BBC News)
• Hearts, Minds and Genes Coalition: eating disorders advocacy, parliamentary briefings, No.10 Downing Street
• Expert Reviewer and Board Co-Chair, European Commission Horizon Europe calls. UKRI and WT