The Highland Psychiatric Research Group had been founded in the 1980s with the involvement of Iain Glen, a consultant psychiatrist.
[1][2] Glen had an interest in cell membrane biochemistry, and theorised that there was a relationship to a group of mental health disorders.
[2][3] The Ness Foundation was registered as a charity in 1998[4] and the following year became an associate partner of the project that went on to become the UHI Millenium Institute.
[5] Its principal area of research was the relevance of lipids in these disorders but later this has been extended to include the role of genetics.
Through its wholly owned commercial subsidiary, Pan Diagnostics Limited, the foundation worked to develop a tool kit intended to enable early detection of people at a higher risk of serious mental illness.