Tony Grace is Professor of Neuroscience, Psychiatry, and Psychology in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh and a specialist in dopaminergic systems and neurotransmitter interaction in schizophrenia, in addition to the role of stress and developmental abnormalities in psychiatric disorders. His research further covers the pathology of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, especially in relation to deep-brain stimulation. He is a Fellow and Council member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) and is on the Scientific Advisory Board of NARSAD, the Schizophrenia Research Forum and member of the Board of Directors of the Schizophrenia International Research Society. His awards include the Daniel H. Efron Award (American College of Neuropsychopharmacology – ACNP); the Kearny Visiting Professor, Mental Health Research Institute, Univ. Melbourne, Australia; the Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award-Senior Scholar and the Dr. Paul Janssen Schizophrenia Research Award (CINP). He has over 149 peer-reviewed publications.
William Honer is Jack Bell Chair in Schizophrenia and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia. He is the Scientific Director of the BC Mental Health and Addictions Research Institute, directs the Centre for Complex Disorders, and is a consultant psychiatrist for Vancouver General Hospital and for PHSA Mental Health and Addictions Services (Riverview Hospital). He has contributed extensively on the etiology and pathophysiology of schizophrenia, the brain structure and treatment response in first-episode and treatment refractory patients. Additional interests include brain aging, and substance abuse related to psychosis. He has over 128 peer-reviewed publications in the field of psychiatric disorders. Dr. Honer received a Scientist Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and has received both the Young Investigator Award (1997) and the Heinz Lehmann Award (2008) from the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology.
Ludo Kennis was Senior Research Fellow at J&J and has synthesized oxatomide (Tinset), loperamide (Imodium), Ketanserin (Sufrexal), risperidone (Risperdal), and paliperidone (Invega). These five compounds have earned over 50 billion dollars to J&J during their lifetime. Loperamide is on the WHO list of essential medicines, because this drug has saved thousands of children in the third World from dehydration. Mr. Kennis is a co-inventor on 57 patents and has published 7 papers and has been awarded the 2005 American Chemical Society Heroes Award.
Steven Potkin is a Professor of Psychiatry and the director of research at Univeristy of California Irvine since 1984. Since 1999, he is the Robert R. Sprague Director of the Brain Imaging Center at UC Irvine. He received his MD in 1971 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and did his residency in psychiatry at Duke University in North Carolina. In 1975 Dr. Potkin began working at NIMH and by the time he left in 1984 was the head of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia. He is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed articles. He is an expert in imaging, genotyping and clinical trials in schizophrenia.
Mohamed Sherif is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University and Affiliated Faculty member of the Robert J. and Nancy D. Carney Institute for Brain Sciences at Brown University. Dr. Sherif’s training and research integrate computational neuroscience, clinical psychiatry, and brain electrophysiology. He was the first to join the dual Residency/Ph.D. program at SUNY Downstate Medical Center/ NYU Tandon School of Engineering. In his Ph.D., Dr. Sherif used biophysically-realistic computer models of the hippocampus to understand oscillatory changes in animal models of schizophrenia and investigate possible novel medication targets using mechanistic computer modeling approaches. After his residency in Brooklyn, NY, Dr. Sherif was awarded the VA Special Psychopharmacology Research fellowship at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System and Yale University. Designing and conducting pharmaco-EEG clinical trials, Dr. Sherif became interested in the use of ketamine for the treatment of treatment-resistant depression. He was one of the psychiatrists running the ketamine clinic and ketamine research at the Connecticut VA. Dr. Sherif was awarded the VA career-development award (CDA-1) and the Leet Patterson Foundation grant to investigate EEG biomarkers of ketamine’s antidepressant effects.
Torgny Svensson, M.D., is Professor of Pharmacology since 1983 as well as a member of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He received his M.D./ Ph.D. degrees from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and subsequently spent several years in the US, working both at Yale University Medical School, Depts. of Pharmacology and Psychiatry, and at The Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA. Dr. Svensson has served as Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology, and is the author of almost 300 scientific publications, among them seminal papers in Science and Neuron and several patent applications, and has been an invited speaker at innumerous international meetings. He has also served as scientific advisor to several academic institutions and drug companies and has received numerous awards and honors, among them the ECNP Lilly Neuroscience, Basic Science Award in 2000. Dr. Svensson served as President of the Scandinavian College of Neuro-Psychopharmacology 2001-2005 and as President of the Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum (CINP) 2006-2008. His major scientific contributions concern the regulation and function of brain monoamine systems, the mode of action of antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs and various augmentation strategies, as well as the neurobiological basis of nicotine dependence and its treatment.
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