Speakers

Dr Aitchison studied medicine at the University of Oxford, and received a First Class BA (Hons) in Physiological Sciences in 1987, with a University Prize. She trained in psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital, and has worked at the National Institute of Health and the University of Colorado (USA) under a Lilly Travelling Fellowship awarded by the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Between 1996 and 1999, she was a Wellcome Mental Health Research Training Fellow, during which period she performed molecular genetic studies for a PhD in pharmacogenetics (on the role of cytochrome P450 variants in response to treatment with psychiatric medication). Dr Aitchison was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in 2001. She is a member of international and national professional organizations including the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics, a faculty member of the Annual Pharmacogenetics in Psychiatry Meeting (New York), the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the British Association of Psychopharmacology, the International Early Psychosis Association and the London Early Intervention Network Steering and Research Groups. Her awards include a Junior Investigator Award at the World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics (1995), a Young Investigator Award for the International Congress in Schizophrenia Research (1997) and a Young Scientist Award at the 10th Biennial Winter Workshop on Schizophrenia (2000).

Dr Stephan Claes

Dr Stephan Claes is an Associate Professor at the University of Leuven, Belgium. For some years, his group is active in the field of psychiatric genetics. More recently, they published a number of genetic association studies with genes involved in the function of the HPA axis. The group also continues to collect clinical and functional data in groups of patients with stress-related psychiatric disorders such as major depression and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Dr Anthony Cleare

Dr Cleare trained in psychiatry at the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals in London, also spending time as a liaison psychiatrist at Kings College Hospital in London. At the end of his training, he was awarded the Laughlin Prize of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. In 1998, he obtained his PhD looking at neuroendocrine aspects of affective disorders, and has continued an active research programme into neurobiological aspects of affective disorders since then. Other research interests include the neuroendocrinology and neurochemistry of chronic fatigue syndrome and ‘affective spectrum’ disorders. As well as his academic work at the Institute of Psychiatry, he is currently a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals, where he is the Director of the inpatient treatment programme of the National Affective Disorders Unit. This unit specializes in the multidisciplinary assessment and treatment of patients with treatment resistant affective disorders, and maintains an active research programme.

Prof Bernie Crespi

Prof Crespi is a Professor of Evolutionary Biology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, who has published on diverse topics including the evolution of social behavior, the evolution of genomic conflict, levels of selection, phylogenetics, placentation, speciation, and methodological approaches to analyzing adaptation. He did his PhD with William Hamilton and Richard Alexander at the University of Michigan, followed by postdoctoral studies at the University of New South Wales, the University of Oxford, and Cornell University. Prof Crespi is currently applying recently-developed genomic models of molecular evolution, evolutionary conflict, and adaptation to major disorders of human cognition, including autism, psychosis, and depression.

Prof Philip J Cowen

Prof P J Cowen trained in medicine at University College Hospital, London, and then in psychiatry at King’s College Hospital. He then went to Oxford to work in the MRC Unit of Clinical Pharmacology under David Grahame-Smith who was the first to identify the crucial role of tryptophan hydroxylase in the synthesis of serotonin. He studied the basic neuropharmacology of serotonin and its application to clinical psychopharmacology. Since 1983, he has been MRC Clinical Scientist and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist in the Department of Psychiatry in Oxford. He was elected to a personal chair in Psychopharmacology in the University in 1997 and to a Fellowship in the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2000. His main interests are in the biochemistry and treatment of mood disorders, particularly the pharmacological management of resistant depression.

Prof Robert Dantzer

Prof Dantzer was born on 1944 in Saint-Etienne, France. He got his Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine on 1968, his PhD on 1972, and his Doctorate es-Sciences on 1977. Until April 2006, he was Director of Research at the French National Institute for Agronomic Research and the Director of the Laboratory of Integrative Neurobiology at Bordeaux, France, an operation funded by the French Scientific Research Council, the French National Institute of Agronomic Research and the University of Bordeaux 2. He then moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he is Professor of Psychoneuroimmunology in the Department of Pathology at the College of Medicine. He is coordinating there a Research Program in Integrative Immunology and Behavior Program.

Prof Dantzer has carried out research for many years on the psychobiology of stress, the influence of neuropeptides on behavior, and the interactions between the immune system and the brain. His current research aims at understanding the mechanisms of cytokine-induced sickness behavior, and the possible involvement of cytokines in symptoms of depression. He has authored and co-authored more than 300 original research papers and 100 book chapters on stress, anxiety, neuropeptides and psychoneuroimmunology. He is also the author or the editor of several books on stress in intensive husbandry, emotions, psychosomatics, and neurobiology of cytokines. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Psychoneuroendocrinology (Elsevier), the Associate Editor of Brain, Behavior and Immunity (Elsevier), and the past President of the Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society.

Prof Ted Dinan

Prof Ted Dinan is Professor of Psychiatry at University College Cork. He was Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry at Trinity College Dublin then Chair of Clinical Neurosciences and Professor of Psychological Medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. He has worked in research laboratories on both sides of the Atlantic and has a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Psychiatrists and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He has published over 180 papers and numerous books on the pharmacology and neurobiology of affective disorders. His papers have been published widely in journals such as Nature, Brain Research, British Medical Journal, American Journal of Psychiatry, British Journal of Psychiatry and Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Prof Nicol Ferrier

Since 1990, Professor Ferrier has been Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Newcastle and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland Mental Health NHS Trust. His major research interests are in psychopharmacology, neurobiology and treatment of severe affective disorders. Professor Ferrier is involved in many areas of grant-supported research and has published over 150 papers. He regularly presents at national and international conferences. He was on the NICE Guidelines for Unipolar Depression and is Chairman of the NICE Guidelines in Bipolar Disorder.

Dr Peter Gass

Peter Gass studied medicine at the University of Heidelberg (Germany) and at the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, USA), University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign, USA) and Cornell University (New York, USA). From 1990-1995 he did his residency in neuropathology at the University of Heidelberg and subsequently worked as neuropathologist. From 1996-1998 he was research fellow at the Department of Molecular Biology of the Cell (Prof G. Schütz), German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg. Main focus of his research were neuropathological and behavioral analyses of mice with targeted mutagenesis of transcription factors, such as cAMP-response element binding protein (CREB) and glucocorticoid receptors (GRs). From 1999-2003 he did his residency in psychiatry and psychotherapy at the Central Institute of Mental Health Mannheim (University of Heidelberg), 2005 he became Professor for Psychiatry. His research interests are molecular genetic, behavioral and neuropathological animal models for affective disorders, in particular with respect to the influence of stress and glucocorticoid receptors.

Prof Ian Goodyer

Prof Ian Goodyer is Foundation Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge. His research interests are in the psychoendocrine aspects of human development and psychopathology. He has focussed on how hormones, particularly cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone, vary with age and between the sexes, and how these variations influence the effects of negative life events and difficulties on the onset, course and outcomes of depressive disorders in young people. He is particularly interested in the relations between endocrine, adrenarche and puberty, and psychological , emotion regulation and cognitive control, maturation. How these psychoendocrine processes influence the liability and outcome of emotional and behavioural disorders is the clinical focus of interest. His studies are focussed on children and adolescents in the community at high risk for common psychiatric disorders as well as current patients and their relatives. Their designs involve experimental approaches to measuring feelings and thoughts, salivary analyses of circulating hormones and psychophysiological and neuroimaging techniques of brain-behaviour relationships. They collaborate we a number of other research groups including the Wolfson Brain Imaging Unit, and the MRC Cognitive and Brain Sciences Unit.

Prof Matthew Hotopf

Prof Matthew Hotopf is Professor of General Hospital Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, and works as a consultant liaison psychiatrist in King's College Hospital. He was trained in psychiatry at the Maudsley and epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. His research interests mainly focus on studying the overlap between medicine and psychiatry, including chronic fatigue syndrome, other unexplained syndromes, Gulf War illness and depression related to physical disease.

Prof Stafford Louis Lightman

Prof Stafford Lightman is Professor of Medicine at the University of Bristol and Director of the Henry Wellcome Laboratories for Integrative Neuroscience and Endocrinology. He is an Honorary Consultant Physician and endocrinologist at the United Bristol Healthcare NHS Trust. He studied medicine at the University of Cambridge – where he did biochemical pharmacology for his Part II and at the same time developed his interest in anthropology – and then did his clinical studies at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School. Interspersed with anthropological field trips to the Mato Grosso and Irian Jaya, he developed his interests in the central nervous system regulation of the neuroendocrine system, and its relevance for human disease. He took leave from his lectureship with Sir Stanley Peart at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School to do a PhD with Leslie Iversen in Cambridge and returned to a Wellcome Senior Lectureship at St Mary’s. Stafford Lightman’s research programme has focussed on the neuroscience/endocrine interface. He has been able to demonstrate clear neurochemical differences in the brain’s response to acute and chronic stress and has shown how genes, early life programming and recent experiences all have major effects on the way an animal responds to a stressor. He has developed novel means of assessing ultradian rhythmicity of stress hormone secretion and has demonstrated that altering the patterns of hormone secretion represents an additional mechanism of corticosteroid hormone signalling. He is now developing new techniques to study the neuroendocrine, autonomic, psychological and clinical effects of stress in man and recently he chaired an NIH working group on the cardiovascular consequences of chronic stress. He was founding Editor in Chief of the Journal of Neuroendocrinology and has a particular interest in the development of postgraduate medical education and medical research in Uganda.

Dr Paul John Lucassen

Dr Paul John Lucassen obtained his PhD (cum laude) in 1996 from the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research (promotor; Prof D.F. Swaab), University of Amsterdam on a topic on Alzheimer's disease and human brain. After that, he worked as a postdoc with Prof E.R. De Kloet in Leiden on a project on stress, apoptosis and glucocorticoid sensitivity of the human hippocampus. In 1998, he became assistant professor at the Centre for Neuroscience of the Swammerdam Institute of Life Sciences (Head; Prof M. Joels) of the University of Amsterdam to work on a.o. neurogenesis and hippocampal function. In 2004, he was appointed associate professor. He currently investigates structural dynamic plasticity changes in relation to stress and disease. His group focuses on 1) the functional role of adult hippocampal neurogenesis, 2) structural plasticity in relation to stress and antidepressant action, and 3) tau and cytoskeletal alterations in relation to early development and vulnerability to tauopathies and dementia.

Dr Steve F Maier

Dr. Maier received his Ph.D. in 1968 from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Colorado. He is the author of over 300 scientific papers, holds numerous research grants from both the National Institutes of Health and private foundations, and has received many awards including the Neal Miller and Donald. O Hebb prizes. His research falls into 3 broad areas. 1) Mechanisms by which the immune system modulates neural activity and the implications of this interaction for understanding mood, cognition, and pain. Much of this work centers on the role of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the brain. 2) Psychological variables that modulate the behavioral and neurochemical impact of exposure to stressors, with an emphasis on understanding the neural mechanisms that allow these variables to act. Recent work focuses on the role of the prefrontal cortex in regulating brainstem and limbic structures. 3) Drug addiction, with a focus on understanding the mechanisms by which stressors and other factors modulate the rewarding effects of drugs. Recent work focuses on interactions between serotonergic and dopaminergic systems in regulating reward. These areas are all multidisciplinary, and his laboratory uses techniques ranging from molecular to neurochemical to behavioral in approaching the issues above.

Prof Helen S. Mayberg

Prof Mayberg is Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the Emory University School of Medicine and has an active research program in the neuroimaging of depression. Her studies have systematically examined neural mechanisms mediating antidepressant response to various treatments including pharmacotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and placebo with a goal towards identification of neurobiological markers predicting treatment response and optimized treatment selection. Her long-term interest in neural network models of mood regulation in health and disease led to the recent development of a new intervention for treatment resistant patients using deep brain stimulation, a study initiated at the University of Toronto and now continuing at Emory. Prof Mayberg is a Board Certified Neurologist, trained at Columbia's Neurological Institute in New York, with fellowship training in nuclear medicine at Johns Hopkins. She received a BA in Psychobiology from UCLA and an MD from University of Southern California.

Dr Hamish McAllister-Williams

Dr McAllister-Williams qualified in medicine from Edinburgh in 1987. Following house jobs, he held a post as a Wellcome Clinical Training Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology in Edinburgh gaining a PhD in Neuropharmacology for work studying serotonergic (5-HT) responses in central neurones. He undertook his initial clinical training in Psychiatry at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital and then moved to Newcastle in 1995 as a Clinical Lecturer. In 1999 he was awarded a MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship at Senior Lecturer level to investigate the pathophysiology of affective disorders, in particular the role of serotonin and cortisol. He holds an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist contract with Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland Mental Health Trust, running a tertiary referral clinic for patients with treatment resistant mood disorders. In 2004 he was appointed a Reader in Clinical Psychopharmacology by the University of Newcastle.

Prof Peter McGuffin

Peter McGuffin is Director of the MRC Social Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre at Institute of Psychiatry , King's College London. He graduated from Leeds University medical School in 1972. After a period of training in internal medicine and passing the membership of the Royal College of Physicians he trained in psychiatry first in Leeds and then at the Maudsley hospital London. He was awarded an MRC Training Fellowship in 1979, obtaining training in genetics in London and Washington University St Louis and completing a PhD with thesis on genetic linkage in schizophrenia. He was awarded an MRC senior clinical Fellowship at the Institute of psychiatry in 1982 and thereafter was appointed to the chair of Psychological Medicine at the University of Wales College of Medicine in 1987, a post he held until taking up his present position in October 1998. He has edited or authored 10 books and has written around 400 papers chapters or articles on psychiatry and psychiatric genetics. He is a Founding Fellow of Britain's Academy of Medical Sciences , Distinguished Fellow of the International Society for Affective Disorders, past president of the International Society for Psychiatric Genetics, and his most recent award is the Eric Strömgen medal from the Danish Psychiatric Association.

Dr Andrew H Miller

Dr. Andrew Miller is William P. Timmie Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director of Psychiatric Oncology at the Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Miller attended medical school at the Medical College of Georgia and did a residency in psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. As a junior faculty member, Dr. Miller trained with Dr. Marvin Stein at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Dr. Bruce McEwen at Rockefeller University. Dr. Miller’s work focuses on the impact of the activated immune system on behavior and health. He is also interested in the role of glucocorticoid hormones in the regulation of inflammatory responses. Dr. Miller has published over 100 manuscripts in scholarly journals and has edited a book entitled “Depressive Disorders and Immunity”. Dr. Miller currently has several studies funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and pharmaceutical companies to examine the mechanism and treatment of depression caused by the cytokine, interferon alpha, which is used for the treatment of infectious diseases and cancer. His interferon alpha studies provide a model to understand and treat depression, fatigue and cognitive dysfunction in medically ill patients. Aside from his research endeavors, Dr. Miller is a Board Certified Psychiatrist and an examiner for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He is also the recipient of 3 teaching awards, a NARSAD Independent Investigator Award and an NIMH Research Scientist Development Award, which he has held for the past 20 years.

Prof Terrie E Moffitt

Prof Terrie E. (Temi) Moffitt researches the interplay between nature and nurture in the origins of problem behaviors. Her particular interest is in antisocial behaviors. She directs the Environmental-Risk Longitudinal Twin Study ("E-risk"), which follows a 1994 birth cohort of 1116 British families with twins. She is Associate Director of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study in New Zealand, which conducts a 32-year longitudinal study of a 1972 birth cohort of 1000 individuals and their families. For her research, she has received the American Psychological Association's Early Career Contribution Award (1993) and Distinguished Career Award in Developmental Psychology (2006). She is a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1999), the American Society of Criminology (2003), the British Academy (2004), and Academia Europaea (2005). She has served on investigative panels for institutions such as the Nuffield Council on Bioethics (ethics of behavioural genetic research) and the US National Academy of Sciences (research into firearms and violence). She currently holds a Royal Society-Wolfson Merit Award. She is now Professor of Social Behaviour and Development at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, and Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She can be reached at: t.moffitt@iop.kcl.ac.uk or tmoffitt@wisc.edu.

Prof Anne Mudge

Anne is currently an Honorary Professor of Cell Physiology at University College London (UCL) and a Senior Group Leader in the Medical Research Council Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology (MRC-LMCB). She obtained her first degree in Biochemistry at the University of Queensland, Australia, and then worked at several Universities in Australia and the USA before doing her PhD at Harvard Medical School. At Harvard she specialized in Neurobiology and Pharmacology and pioneered the use of primary neurons in culture to study the mechanism of action of neuropeptides. She then joined Martin Raff at UCL, first as a post-doctoral fellow and then as joint holder of several MRC Programme Grants to study neurodevelopment. In recent years, she has devoted her research effort to understanding the mechanism of action of various psychiatric drugs used to treat bipolar disorder, again using primary neurons in culture. The hope is that determining the common therapeutic effects of the drugs will lead to a better understanding of the molecular and cellular basis of bipolar disorder and to the development of more specific drugs with fewer side-effects to treat this devastating illness. She has also attempted to understand why conventional antidepressants have a high risk of destabilizing mood in people with bipolar disorder, sometimes inducing a manic episode. Her funding for this work has come from the MRC and the Stanley Medical Research Institute, and she has collaborations with both pharmaceutical and biotech companies interested in developing new treatments for bipolar disorder.

Prof Robin Murray

Prof Robin Murray is Professor of Psychiatry and Head of the Department of Psychological Medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK. Previously, he was Dean of the Institute and President of the Association of European Psychiatrists. He is involved in research aimed at improving our understanding of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, by means of epidemiology, imaging, psychology and genetics. He also contributes to developing better treatments for these conditions and runs a clinical unit at the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospital, London, UK to which people with psychotic illnesses attend inpatient and outpatient care. He tries hard, but not always successfully, to avoid drowning in the numerous committees that universities and the health services create.

Prof Charles B Nemeroff

Prof Nemeroff was born in New York City in 1949 and educated in the New York City Public School System. After graduating from the City College of New York in 1970, he enrolled in graduate school at Northeastern University and received a Master's degree in Biology in 1973. He received his MD and PhD (Neurobiology) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His residency training in psychiatry was conducted at both the University of North Carolina and at Duke University, after which he joined the faculty of Duke University. At Duke he was Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology and Chief of the Division of Biological Psychiatry before relocating in 1991 to Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, where he is the Reunette W. Harris Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. His research has concentrated on the biological basis of the major neuropsychiatric disorders, including affective disorders, schizophrenia, and anxiety disorders. His clinical research has recently focused on the use of neuroendocrine, neuroimaging and neurochemical methods to elucidate the pathophysiology of depression. In recent years he has sought to determine the neurobiological mechanisms that mediate the increased risk for depression in individuals who were victims of child abuse. He has also contributed to the burgeoning area of research concerning the relationship of depression to cardiovascular disease.
Prof Nemeroff has received numerous honors during his career, including the A.E. Bennett Award from the Society of Biological Psychiatry (1979), the Judith Silver Memorial Young Scientist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (1989), both the Kempf Award in Psychobiology (1989) and the Samuel Hibbs Award (1990) from the American Psychiatric Association, and the Gold Medal Award and the Research Prize (1996) from the Society of Biological Psychiatry. In 1993 he was awarded the Edward J. Sachar Award from Columbia University and the Edward A. Strecker Award from The Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital. In 1997, he was the recipient of the Gerald Klerman Award from the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Disorders Association and the Selo Prize from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression. In 1998 he was the recipient of the Research Award in Mood Disorders from the American College of Psychiatrists and in 1999 he received the Bowis Award from the same organization. He was awarded the Menninger Prize in 2000 from the American College of Physicians, the Research Award from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in 2001, and the Burlingame Prize from the Institute of Living in 2002. In 2006 he was named the recipient of a new Award for Research Mentoring from the American Psychiatric Association and the Vestermark Award for Excellence in Psychiatric Education. He was also named Alumnus of the Year in 2006 by the University of North Carolina. Dr. Nemeroff is the Editor-in-Chief of Neuropsychopharmacology. With Alan F. Schatzberg, MD, he is co-Editor of the Textbook of Psychopharmacology, now in its Third Edition, published by the American Psychiatric Association Press. He has served on the Mental Health Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Mental Health and the Biomedical Research Council for NASA. He is past President of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and the American College of Psychiatrists. In 2002 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine.
He is currently the recipient of three large Center Research grants from the NIH, including a Conte Center for the Neurobiology of Major Mental Disorders, two individual research grants, and has published more than 800 research reports and reviews.

Prof Randoph M Nesse

Randolph M Nesse is Professor of Psychiatry, Professor of Psychology and Research Professor at the University of Michigan. He has been instrumental in developing the field of Darwinian Medicine and the application of its principles to better understanding mental disorders, most specifically depression. The current core of this work uses new methods for eliciting comprehensive information on the incentive structures of individual lives with special emphasis on unreachable goals. Closely related are projects to develop measures that can be used in large survey studies to assess psychiatric family history and behavioral measures of trust. This work complements ongoing work on genetic and neuroendocrine mechanisms that increase vulnerability to anxiety and mood disorders, including a large genetic study of personality. Two additional projects involve attempting to understand the origins of capacities for commitment in relationships, and behavioral and physiological factors that account for how sex differences in mortality ratios vary with cohort and culture.

Prof David Nutt

David Nutt is currently Professor of Psychopharmacology and Head of the Department of Community Based Medicine at the University of Bristol. He received his undergraduate training in medicine at Cambridge and Guy's Hospital, and continued training in neurology to MRCP. After completing his psychiatric training in Oxford, he continued there as a lecturer and then later as a Wellcome Senior Fellow in psychiatry. He then spent two years as Chief of the Section of Clinical Science in the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in NIH, Bethesda, USA. On returning to England in 1988 he set up the Psychopharmacology Unit in Bristol, an interdisciplinary research grouping spanning the departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology. Their main research interests are in the brain mechanisms underlying anxiety, depression and addiction and the mode of action of therapeutic drugs. He is currently a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), and Chair of its Technical Committee, on the Council and President-Elect of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) and a Director of the ‘European Certificate in Anxiety and Mood Disorders’ and the ‘Masters in Affective Disorders’ Courses jointly administered by the Universities of Maastrict, Bristol and Florence. In addition, he is the Editor of the Journal of Psychopharmacology, advisor to the British National Formulary and a Past-President of the British Association of Psychopharmacology (BAP). He was also a member of the Independent Inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, chaired by Viscountess Runciman that reported in 2000 and a member of the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) from 2000 – 2005. From January 2006 he has taken on the role as Director of Bristol Neuroscience.

Dr Veronica O’Keane

Dr O’Keane is head of the section of Perinatal Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry and runs a Perinatal In-patient Unit for women with pregnancy or post-partum (1 year) related mental health problems. She trained in Dublin and at the Institute of Psychiatry, receiving her PhD from Trinity College Dublin. Her main research focus in recent years has been the cortisol stress axis during pregnancy and the puerperium, particularly how maternal stress may affect pregnancy and the developing baby. She has previously published in the area of the HPA axis and affective disorders and the chronic fatigue syndrome, VNS therapy and also on endocrine abnormalities in schizophrenia.

Prof Michael Owen

Professor of Psychological Medicine, Head of Department of Psychological Medicine, Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff University. Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist, Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust. Michael Owen qualified in Medicine in Birmingham in 1983 having previously taken a BSc in Anatomical Studies in 1979 and a PhD in Neuroscience in 1982. He studied Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital and was subsequently a Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, London. In 1997 he became an MRC Training Fellow at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at Imperial College, London. In 1990 he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Neuropsychiatric Genetics at the University of Wales College of Medicine (UWCM), being promoted to Personal Chair in 1995. Since 1998 he has been Professor of Psychological Medicine and Head of Department of Psychological Medicine where he also heads the Cardiff Neuropsychiatric Genetics group, which is one of the largest such groups in the world. He was Pro Vice Chancellor for Research (PVCR) at UWCM from 2001-2005 and is currently Deputy PVCR at Cardiff University. His own research interests relate to genetic aspects of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, ADHD and dyslexia, and in the relationship between 22q11 deletions and psychosis. He has published over 400 scientific papers. He was President of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics (2000-2005) and was a member of the council of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2001-2004).

Dr Carmine M Pariante

Dr. Pariante is the Head of the Stress, Psychiatry and Immunology Laboratory (SPI-Lab), in the Division of Psychological Medicine. He is interested in the roles of glucocorticoid hormones and proinflammatory cytokines in the biological effects of stress, in the pathogenesis of depression and in the molecular mechanism of antidepressant drugs. His research career started in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he worked between 1995-1997 with Andrew Miller and Charles Nemeroff. Currently, Dr. Pariante is a Clinical Assistant Professor position in the Department at Emory, and has several ongoing research collaborations with them. After having moved to London in 1997, and having been successful at the MRCPsych examination in April 1999, Dr. Pariante started his MRC Clinical Training Fellowship. He then became Clinical Lecturer in June 2002. Finally, Dr. Pariante has obtained his PhD in December 2003, and became a Senior Lecturer and MRC Clinician Scientist Fellow in July 2004.

Prof Mary Phillips

Professor Mary Phillips trained in Medicine at the University of Cambridge, UK and in Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital, London and Institute of Psychiatry, UK. She received a research training fellowship from the Medical Research Council (UK) to examine visual scan paths in schizophrenia. She subsequently developed a research interest in the application of functional neuroimaging techniques to the examination of the neural basis of emotion processing in healthy and psychiatric populations. She has, in particular, focused on the identification of neural correlates that underlie the symptoms of specific abnormalities in emotion processing in individuals with mood disorders. She became Professor of Neuroscience and Emotion and Head of Section of Neuroscience and Emotion within the Department of Psychiatry, Division of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, UK in 2003. In October, 2004, she joined the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh as part-time Visiting Professor and Director of the Functional Neuroimaging Program, moving to become a Professor of Psychiatry in April, 2006. She maintains her position at the Institute of Psychiatry part-time. In 2006, Professor Phillips was awarded the Nellie Blumenthal Investigator by the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression and also became Co-Director of the Brain Imaging Research Center within Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Professor Phillips now heads teams of dedicated researchers in the UK and the US, at both institutions. Professor Phillips has received numerous research funding awards, and has authored or co-authored over 100 publications.

Prof Martin Raff

Martin Raff was born and educated in Montreal. He received his BSc and MD degrees at McGill University and did a residency in medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal and in neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He did postdoctoral training in immunology at the National Institute for Medical Research in London, after which he moved to University College London, where he has been a Professor of Biology since 1979 and emeritus from 2002. He is currently at the Medical Research Council Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology and Cell Biology Unit and in the Biology Department at University College London. His research has been in immunology, cell biology, and developmental neurobiology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Academia Europaea, a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences. He was president of the British Society of Cell Biology from 1991 to 1995 and was chairman of the UK Life Sciences Committee from 1998-2001. He is a co-author of two widely used cell biology textbooks.

Prof Alan F Schatzberg

Prof Alan F. Schatzberg received his M.D. from New York University in 1968. He did his psychiatric residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center from 1969-1972 and was Chief Resident, Southard Clinic in 1971-1972. He was also a Clinical Fellow in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. After serving in the United States Air Force, he joined the staff at McLean Hospital and the Faculty of Harvard Medical School in 1974. At McLean Hospital, he held a number of important positions including Service Chief, Interim Psychiatrist in Chief, Co-Director of the Affective Disorders Program (with Dr. J. Cole) and Director of the Depression Research Facility. In 1988, he became Clinical Director of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School but continued at McLean Hospital with his research program on the biology and treatment of depression. In 1991, Prof. Schatzberg moved to Stanford University to become the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr., Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Prof Schatzberg has been an active investigator in the biology and psychopharmacology of depressive disorders. He has explored norepinephrine systems in depression as a means of subtyping these disorders. His research has also given us major insights into the biological mechanisms that underlie the development of delusions in major depression and is now opening exciting and innovative therapeutic strategies using glucocorticoid antagonists. Prof Schatzberg has also been an active investigator in the clinical psychopharmacology of nondelusional depression with a particular recent interest in chronic depression. He has authored over 500 publications and abstracts, including the Manual of Clinical Psychopharmacology, whose fifth edition was published in 2005 and which is co-authored by Dr. Jonathan O. Cole and Dr. Charles DeBattista. He also co-edited with Prof Charles B. Nemeroff the Textbook of Psychopharmacology whose third edition appeared in late 2003. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Psychiatric Research and sits on many other editorial boards as well, including the American Psychiatric Press, Archives of General Psychiatry, Depression and Anxiety (Associate Editor-in-Chief), Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology, Psychoneuroendocrinology, Neuropsychopharmacology (Translational Research Editor), and others. He is a Past President of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and the Society of Biological Psychiatry, and is Secretary-General of the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology. He was awarded the 1998 Gerald L. Klerman, MD Lifetime Research Award from the NDMDA, the 2001 Gerald L. Klerman, MD Award from Cornell University Medical College, the 2001 Edward A. Strecker, MD Award from the University of Pennsylvania, the 2002 Mood Disorders Research Award from the American College of Psychiatrists, the 2002 American Psychiatric Association Award for Research, the Forum Award from the 3rd International Forum of Mood and Anxiety Disorders (IFMAD) in 2002, and the 2005 Distinguished Service in Psychiatry Award from the American College of Psychiatrists. In 2003, he was elected into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

Prof Thomas E. Schlaepfer

Prof Schlaepfer received his medical training at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He did his residency training in psychiatry at the University Hospital Bern and the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a fellowship in Psychiatric Neuroimaging at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He has training in cognitive-behavioral therapy, contextual family therapy, and interpersonal therapy. In 1997 he returned to the Department of Psychiatry of the University Hospital Bern; since 2003 he is the Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the University of Bonn, Germany. Prof Schlaepfer has authored or coauthored over 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and numerous editorials. He currently is a member of the editorial boards of Neuropsychopharmacology, Journal of ECT, CNS Spectrums and International Review of Psychiatry. He serves currently in the program committees of the Society of Biological Psychiatry (SOBP) and the Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum (CINP); the Education & Training Committee and the Liaison Committee of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP); he is a member of the board of the Association for Convulsive Therapy and the International Society for Transcranial Stimulation. He is a flight surgeon in the Swiss Army Air Force with a Major’s rank.

Prof Jonathan Seckl

Prof Jonathan Seckl is Moncrieff Arnott Professor of Molecular Medicine and Director (Dean) of Research, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. The research focus of the group is on steroid hormone action, in particular for glucocorticoids. Key discoveries include the role of 11betaHSD1 in amplifying glucocorticoid action and its importance as an underlying mechanism and therapeutic target in the Metabolic Syndrome and in Cognitive Dysfunction. A further strength is in the role of glucocorticoids in the intrauterine programming of adult disease. In each of these areas, research spans from 'cloning to clinic'.

Prof Andrew Steptoe

Andrew Steptoe graduated with a first in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge in 1972, and completed his DPhil at the University of Oxford in 1975. After two years as an MRC research fellow, he was appointed lecturer in psychology at St. George's Hospital Medical School. He remained at St. George's until 2000, becoming professor and head of the Department of Psychology in 1988. Professor Steptoe was awarded a DSc by the University of London in 1995, and was President of the Society for Psychosomatic Research from 1983-1985, and President of the International Society of Behavioral Medicine from 1994-1996. He was founding co-editor (with Professor Jane Wardle) of the British Journal of Health Psychology from 1996-2001. Andrew Steptoe was appointed British Heart Foundation Professor of Psychology in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health in 2000.

Prof Stephen Suomi

Prof Stephen J. Suomi, Ph.D. is Chief of the Laboratory of Comparative Ethology at the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD), National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. He also holds appointments as Research Professor at the University of Virginia (Psychology), the University of Maryland, College Park (Human Development), and The Johns Hopkins University (Mental Hygiene), and is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University (Psychology), the Pennsylvania State University (Human Development) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (Psychology). Prof Suomi studied Psychology as an undergraduate at Stanford University, then continued his studies as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, receiving his Ph.D. in Psychology in 1971. Prof Suomi then joined the Psychology faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he eventually attained the rank of Professor. In 1983 he left Wisconsin to join the NICHD, when he began his present position. Prof Suomi has received international recognition for his extensive research on biobehavioral development in rhesus monkeys and other primate species. His initial postdoctoral research successfully reversed the adverse effects of early social isolation, previous thought to be permanent, in rhesus monkeys. His subsequent research at Wisconsin led to his election as Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science ‘for major contributions to the understanding of social factors that influence the psychological development of nonhuman primates.” Since joining the NICHD he has identified heritable and experiential factors that influence individual biobehavioral development, characterized both behavioral and physiological features of distinctive rhesus monkey phenotypes, and demonstrated the adaptive significance of these different phenotypes in naturalistic settings. His present research focuses on 3 general issues: the interaction between genetic andenvironmental factors in shaping individual developmental trajectories, the issue of continuity vs. change and the relative stability of individual differences throughout development, and the degree to which findings from monkeys studied in captivity generalize not only to monkeys living in the wild but also to humans living in different cultures. Throughout his professional career Prof Suomi has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors. To date, he has authored or co-authored over 350 articles published in scientific journals and chapters in edited volumes. He has also delivered over 350 invited colloquia, symposium and workshop presentations, and convention papers in the U.S. and in 15 foreign countries.

Prof Jim Van Os

Professor Jim van Os is Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology at Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands, and Visiting Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK. He trained in Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry and the Maudsley/Bethlem Royal Hospital in London (UK) and after his clinical training was awarded a three-year UK Medical Research Council Training Fellowship in Clinical Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is on the editorial board of several European and US psychiatric journals such as Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, European Psychiatry, Psychological Medicine, Schizophrenia Research, Schizophrenia Bulletin, Early Intervention in Psychiatry and The Journal of Mental Health. At Maastricht University Hospital, he runs a service for treatment-resistant depression and psychosis. Areas of interest include the clinical, cognitive and genetic epidemiology of depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, in particular the study of variation in overlapping dimensions of these disorders in the general population and the underlying cognitive factors and gene-environment interactions driving this variation. Treatment studies focus on implementation of Assertive Community Treatment and CBT in different mental health settings, and aspects of patient-doctor communication. Over the period 1995-2006, his group published 250 papers on MEDLINE in leading psychiatric, epidemiological and general medical journals

Prof Simon Wessely

Prof Simon Wessely is Professor of Epidemiological and Liaison Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at King’s and Maudsley Hospitals. He started at Cambridge, and read Art for his Part 2, developing an abiding love for Vassily Kandinsky and equal hatred for the work of Marc Chagall. He then attended clinical school at Oxford, followed by two years on a medical rotation in Newcastle being a real doctor and getting medical membership. However, he always intended to study psychiatry, and started training at the Maudsley in 1984, and has not really left Camberwell since, other than a year at the National Hospital for Neurology, and a year studying epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene. He recently also spent a sabbatical in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. His main research interests are in the grey areas between medicine and psychiatry, clinical epidemiology and military health. His first paper was called “Dementia and Mrs Thatcher”, but since then he has published over 450 papers on many subjects, including epidemiology, post traumatic stress, medicine and law, history of psychiatry, chronic pain, somatisation, Gulf War illness, Chemical and/or Biological terrorism, and deliberate self harm. He has published particularly on many aspects of chronic fatigue syndrome/neurasthenia, including its history, status, sociology, epidemiology and treatment. His main current research is around various aspects of military health, including the so called “Gulf War Syndrome”, psychological stressors of military life, PTSD, risk and risk communication, risk and benefits of military service, screening and health surveillance within the Armed Forces, social and psychological outcomes of ex service personnel, and historical aspects of military psychiatry, and is currently concluding a study on the health of 20,000 UK military personnel who took part in the invasion of Iraq recently published in the Lancet . He is also PI on a new Home Office funded study of psychological and behavioural reactions to terrorism in partnership with the Health Protection Agency, and has already published studies of the effects of the July bombs on ordinary Londoners. He is Director of the new Clinical Trials Unit at the Maudsley/Institute of Psychiatry, and co author of a new book on Clinical Trials in Psychiatry. He is also co author of a new history of shell shock – neither book has yet to reach the best seller lists. He is Director of the King’s Centre for Military Health Research Unit at King’s College London and Civilian Consultant Advisor in Psychiatry to the British Army Medical Services. Despite all that, he still sees patients with CFS regularly at King’s College Hospital. Finally, he recently shocked his friends and family by completing the Pedal to Paris to raise money for the Royal British Legion.

Prof Lewis Wolpert

Lewis Wolpert, CBE FRS, is Emeritus Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine in Anatomy and Developmental Biology, At University College. His main research is in pattern formation in development, but following his own experience with depression, he wrote Malignant Sadness - The Anatomy of Depression 3rd Edition 2006 Faber and Faber.

Prof Allan Young

Professor Allan Young trained in Medicine and Psychiatry at the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford. He has held academic appointments at the Universities of Edinburgh, Oxford and Newcastle upon Tyne, latterly holding the Chair of General Psychiatry at Newcastle. He currently holds the LEEF Endowed Chair in Research in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, where he is also the Associate Director of the Institute of Mental Health. His research interests focus on the cause and treatments for severe psychiatric illnesses, particularly Mood Disorders. Professor Young has received research grant funding from the UK Medical research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Stanley Medical Research Institute and numerous other funding agencies. He has published over 140 Medline listed publications.

Prof Elizabeth A. Young

Elizabeth A. Young, M.D. is a Professor in Psychiatry and a Research Professor at the Molecular and Behavioral Neurosciences Institute at the University of Michigan. Her area of expertise is depression and HPA axis abnormalities found in depression. She has conducted a number studies, which include studies on dexamethasone suppression of the HPA axis in depression, CRF infusion studies in depression, fast feedback effects of cortisol in depressed patients, and the effects of metyrapone (removal of negative feedback) on HPA axis activation in depression. In addition to clinical studies, she has conducted basic science studies on chronic stress that were designed to understand some of the regulatory, adaptive changes that the HPA axis undergoes with chronic stress. Her research focus has been expanded to the interaction of the HPA axis with the gonadal axis and abnormalities in reproductive hormones in depressed women. Her work is focused upon how gonadal steroids modulate stress responsiveness. She has conducted large scale studies of saliva cortisol in a number of epidemiological studies including collaborations with Naomi Breslau (Detroit Area Study), James House (CCAHS), George Kaplan (WES health supplement; Kuoppio study) and Mary Haan (SALSA).