Schnyer, Rosa N., D.A.O.M., L.Ac.
Clinical Assistant Professor
PHR 3.208F
512-471-5664
rschnyer@mail.utexas.edu

Dr. Schnyer's clinical training and experience in acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine has served as the foundation for her research career. This research trajectory began in 1993, when in collaboration with John Allen, PhD in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona, they received one of the first NIH funded Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) grants to conduct a pilot study of acupuncture in the treatment of depression in women. Since then, Dr. Schnyer has continuously participated as a co-investigator or research consultant on a number of NIH funded research projects.  In clinical research her focus has been evaluating the efficacy of acupuncture as a treatment for major depression in women (Allen, Schnyer et all, 1998), in pregnant women (Manber, Schnyer et al, 2004) in the general population (Allen, Schnyer et al, 2006) and as an adjunct treatment to refractory depression in bipolar patients (Deheney, Schnyer, et al, accepted Nov. 2008). In addition, her research has focused on women's health (Huang et al, 2006, Nir et al, 2007, Wayne et al, 2008). Dr. Schnyer has collaborated in several studies of pain (Kaptchuk, 2006; Goldman, 2008), stroke (Wayne et al, 2005), IBS (Kaptchuk et al, 2008) and Cerebral Palsy (Duncan et al, 2008).  Dr. Schnyer joined the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin in October of 2008 to support scientific inquiry into Complementary and Alternative health care practices at the College and to begin an Integrative Medicine Initiative at the University. Previously, she served as a Research Associate and consultant at Harvard Medical School, Osher Research Center.

In order to address the emerging challenges required to conduct rigorous research in the field of acupuncture, Dr. Schnyer's research has expanded to include the development of research methodologies that allow the flexibility of traditional Chinese medicine but still maintain the replicability and rigor required by modern research. This methodological work includes innovative translational approaches to the selection and implementation of acupuncture treatment protocols and the operationalization of the Chinese medicine diagnostic process for research purposes.  Dr. Schnyer pioneered the application of treatment manualization, a method previously used in other areas of research, to address important gaps in CAM research (Schnyer and Allen, 2002). She led an NIH funded methodological trial to develop and validate a reliable Chinese Medicine assessment instrument that can be used in conjunction with treatment manualization (TEAMSI-TCM.org). The purpose of this assessment instrument is to increase intra-rater and inter-rater reliability of the Chinese medicine diagnostic process. In addition, the aim is to provide invaluable data that can potentially allow unprecedented comparisons of convergence and divergence between biomedicine and Chinese medicine.

Dr. Schnyer's clinical research interests center around five areas: a) development of an integrated model of health care to treat chronic complex disorders based on individualized systems biology and Chinese medicine; b) assessment of the role of Chinese medicine derived practices in the management of stress, mood and anxiety disorders; c) acupuncture as an adjunct to prevention and care of young adults and adolescents with stress related disorders; d) hormonal and immune correlates of acupuncture's effect on complex chronic disorders; and e) psycho physiological concordance in the acupuncture patient-practitioner clinical encounter as a mediator of the non-specific effects of treatment. Clinically her work focuses on enhancing the mind-body relationship in complex chronic disorders and stress related disorders, including anxiety and depression and providing support in management, prevention and recovery.