Dr. Nierenberg leads the MGH Dauten Family Center for Bipolar Treatment Innovation, formerly the Bipolar Clinic and Research Program, a center dedicated to finding innovative new treatments, providing high quality clinical care, and educating colleagues, patients, families, and the greater community about Bipolar Disorder. His primary interests are depression, bipolar depression, and novel treatments for mood disorders.

Dr. Nierenberg and his colleagues developed an online research infrastructure called the MoodNetwork, a Patient-Powered Research Network (PPRN) that is part of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). The main aim of the MoodNetwork is to bring together patients, caregivers, and other stakeholders who are affected by mood disorders (i.e., Bipolar Disorder and Unipolar Depression) to form a cohort using patient-reported outcomes and electronical medical records as a national infrastructure for future studies and to participate in comparative-effectiveness studies.