2008 Prizes For Outstanding Achievement In Research On
Mental Health Disorders Announced By NARSAD
17 Oct 2008
NARSAD, the world's leading charity dedicated to mental health
research, awards its annual prizes -- among the most coveted in
psychiatry and neuroscience - to six prominent scientists whose
research in the areas of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and
depression, childhood disorders and cognitive neuroscience have led to
significant strides in the understanding and treatment of mental
illness.
The prizes are being presented at NARSAD's 21st annual New
York City gala, this Friday, October 17, at the Waldorf-Astoria, in
Manhattan. The event will also honor Herbert Pardes, M.D., president
and CEO of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, who has served as president
of NARSAD's Scientific Council since its formation in 1986.
The 2008 prize winners, who were selected by NARSAD's
109-member Scientific Council, a volunteer body of leading experts in
mental health research, include:
Irving I. Gottesman, Ph.D., of the University of
Minnesota, a
pioneer nearly half a century ago of the genetic study of mental
disorders, particularly schizophrenia, who will receive the Lieber
Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Schizophrenia Research;
Charles L. Bowden, M.D., of the University of Texas
Health Sciences Center at San Antonio, whose research has focused on
the symptomatic and biological characterization of bipolar disorder, as
well as the effectiveness of mood-stabilizing drugs, and Mark S.
George, M.D., of the Medical University of South Carolina, one of
world's leading experts in the use of brain imaging and stimulation to
understand depression and to devise new antidepressant treatments, who
will both receive the Falcone Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Mood
Disorders Research;
Eric A. Taylor, M.D., of King's College London, a
leader in child psychiatry in Europe, whose groundbreaking research on
conduct disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has led
to new understanding of these conditions and improved criteria for
their diagnosis and treatment, who will be awarded the Ruane Prize for
Outstanding Achievement in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research;
Eric J. Nestler, M.D., Ph.D., Mount Sinai Medical
Center, whose basic research studies in animal models have elucidated
fundamental processes in brain development and disorders such as
depression and drug abuse, who will receive the Goldman-Rakic Prize for
Outstanding Achievement in Cognitive Neuroscience; and
Angus W. MacDonald, III, Ph.D., of the University of
Minnesota, an early-career scientist who is conducting promising
research on the genetic and neural causes of schizophrenia, who will be
awarded the Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Prize for Schizophrenia Research.
NARSAD began awarding prizes in 1987, with the introduction
of the Lieber Prize, and over the years added the other prizes as a way
to recognize those who have made outstanding contributions to the
advancement of brain science and the improvement of treatment options
for patients.
Previous winners of NARSAD's Lieber Prize include two
scientists who subsequently received the Nobel Prize for Medicine or
Physiology in 2000: Arvid Carlsson, M.D., of Gothenberg University in
Sweden (Lieber Prize, 1994) and Paul Greengard, Ph.D., of Rockefeller
University (Lieber Prize, 1996).
Since NARSAD began funding research in 1987, it has
distributed more than $238 million in grants to over 2,700 scientists
at 431 universities, medical centers and research institutes in the
United States and 27 other countries. In 2008 alone, NARSAD
administered a record level of grants, supporting 799 scientists who
are conducting clinical and basic research relating to depression,
anxiety disorders, including PTSD and OCD, bipolar disorder,
schizophrenia, childhood mental disorders, including autism and ADHD,
and many other conditions.
Preceding the awards gala there will be a free, public
symposium on new developments in mental health research, featuring
NARSAD Young Investigators who are conducting particularly innovative
and promising research. The scientists will present new findings in
basic and clinical research on depression, schizophrenia, compulsive
behaviors, the genetics of mental illness, newly identified brain
pathways for treatment, and early diagnosis and intervention in
children and teens with mental disorders. The symposium is being held
at the Times Center, 242 West 41st Street in Manhattan, from 9:00 a.m.
to 4:30 p.m.
NARSAD's 2008 Prizes for Outstanding Research Achievement
Irving I. Gottesman, Ph.D., the recipient of this year's Lieber Prize
for Outstanding Achievement in Schizophrenia Research, is the Irving
and Dorothy Bernstein Professor in Adult Psychiatry and senior fellow
in psychology at University of Minnesota; and the Sherrell J. Aston
Professor of Psychology Emeritus at the University of Virginia, where
he was affiliated for 18 years before assuming his Minnesota post.
He has also served on the faculties of Harvard University, the
University of North Carolina and the Washington University School of
Medicine. For nearly half a century, as researcher and mentor, he has
pioneered in the genetics of mental disorders, particularly
schizophrenia. Dr. Gottesman's contribution to the field of psychiatry
has resulted in numerous breakthroughs, from his early studies
suggesting that psychiatric disorders could represent the extremes of
normal distributions of genetic liability for such illnesses, and that
underlying the liabilities were polygenic systems - a novel idea at the
time, to his founding of the National Institute of Mental Health's
doctoral training program in behavioral genetics. He went on to lead
that program for 14 years.
"This year's Lieber Prize is awarded to Dr. Irv Gottesman for
his outstanding investigations of behavioral phenotypes and genetic
predispositions acting with environmental factors over the course of
development," commented William E. Bunney, Jr., M.D., Distinguished
Professor and Della Martin Chair of Psychiatry at University of
California, Irvine, who chairs NARSAD's Lieber Prize Selection
Committee. "His concept of endophenotypes constitutes a critical
scientific contribution and has been enthusiastically incorporated into
a large number of research studies. One of his most internationally
recognized investigations involves his twin studies in schizophrenia."
NARSAD's 2008 Falcone Prize for Outstanding Achievement in
Mood Disorders Research is being awarded to two scientists for their
individual contributions:
Charles L. Bowden, M.D., Nancy U. Karren Clinical Professor and
professor of pharmacology and radiology at University of Texas Health
Sciences Center at San Antonio, has focused his research mainly on the
symptomatic and biological characterization of bipolar disorders, as
well as the effectiveness and biochemical and physiological effects of
mood-stabilizing drugs. He has been the principal investigator for 80
studies. Dr. Bowden also holds a keen interest in underserved
populations, and directs the Center for Bipolar Illness Interventions
in Hispanic Communities, funded by the National Institute of Mental
Health, among other such activities. In one current effort, his
laboratory is working to develop a comprehensive scale for all of the
symptoms that make up bipolar disorders.
About Dr. Bowden's work, Robert M. Post, M.D., professor of
psychiatry at Penn State College of Medicine and head of the Bipolar
Collaborative Network, who chairs NARSAD's Falcone Prize Selection
Committee, wrote: "Charles Bowden has made outstanding contributions
throughout his career to the improved understanding and, especially,
treatment of bipolar disorders. Many of the newest treatments have been
studied by him in tightly designed, randomized, controlled clinical
trials, leading to their approval by the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) and wide dissemination to patients. These have included the
anticonvulsants valproate (Depakote) and lamotrigine (Lamictal), and
the atypical antipsychotic quetiapine (Seroquel). These agents have
vastly enlarged our treatment armamentarium and provided new options
for patients with bipolar disorder, making it possible for many who
have not responded well to other approaches to achieve substantial
improvement or remission."
Mark S. George, M.D., the second recipient of the Falcone
Prize, is Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the Medical
University of South Carolina, where he also directs the Center for
Advanced Imaging Research and the Brain Stimulation Laboratory. He is
one of the world's leading experts in the use of brain imaging and
stimulation to understand depression and to devise new antidepressant
treatments. In early research at the National Institute of Mental
Health, Dr. George was one of the first scientists to expand the study
of brain imaging technology for psychiatric disorders. He discovered
specific brain changes during normal emotion, and began exploring brain
changes in depression and mania. This led to his pioneering use of a
noninvasive brain stimulation method, transcranial magnetic stimulation
(TMS), to probe neuronal circuits regulating mood, and to clinical
trials of TMS in patients with treatment-resistant depression. This
seminal work resulted in recent approval of TMS by the FDA for use
within the United States.
About
Dr. George's work, Dr. Post, chair of the prize
selection committee wrote: "Dr. George is one of the true young
pioneers of modern psychiatry. He has made seminal contributions to the
development of new, nonconvulsive physiological interventions --rTMS
(repeated transcranial magnetic stimulation) and VNS (vagus nerve
stimulation) -- for the treatment of refractory unipolar and bipolar
depression. He has also studied their mechanisms using novel brain
imaging techniques and is now applying these technologies to the study
of deep brain stimulation for relief of depression as well."
Eric A. Taylor, M.D., recipient of the Ruane Prize for
Outstanding Achievement in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research,
heads the child and adolescent psychiatry department of the Institute
of Psychiatry, King's College London, where he also chairs an
interdisciplinary research group on the childhood problems that lead to
poor adult mental health. His interest in childhood hyperkinesis,
psychopharmacology and neuropsychiatric conditions has led Dr. Taylor
to participate in collaborations involving neuroimaging, experimental
psychological studies and molecular genetics. His goal has been to
track the development of impulsiveness and inattention in children so
as to intervene effectively. His research has resulted in identifying a
subtype of ADHD that has led to improved diagnostic criteria, and has
validated the distinction of hyperactivity from conduct disorder. His
longitudinal epidemiological studies have provided the basis for
European treatment guidelines.
Judith Rapoport, M.D., chief of the Child Psychiatry Branch of
the National Institute of Mental Health, who chairs NARSAD's Ruane
Prize Selection Committee, remarked: "Eric Taylor is a leader in child
psychiatry research, training and clinical services in Britain. His
research focuses on the epidemiology, genetics and brain imaging of
children with conduct disorder and ADHD. Currently, he is leading
long-term studies of community-based (and therefore more
representative) populations. He has trained many if not most of the
most prominent academic child psychiatrists in the United Kingdom,
Netherlands and Hong Kong."
The Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Achievement in
Cognitive Neuroscience will be awarded to Eric J. Nestler, M.D., Ph.D.,
the recently appointed Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience, chairman
of the department of neuroscience and director of the Brain Institute
at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York. The goal of Dr.
Nestler's research is to better understand the molecular mechanisms of
addiction and depression. He uses animal models to identify the ways in
which drugs of abuse or stress change the brain to lead to addiction-
or depression-like syndromes, information that helps him to develop
improved treatments. From 2000 to 2008, he was Distinguished Professor
and chair of the department of psychiatry at the University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas and before that, for 18 years,
professor of psychiatry, pharmacology and neurobiology at Yale
University, where he also directed the Abraham Ribicoff Research
Facilities and the Division of Molecular Psychiatry.
"Dr. Nestler has demonstrated a remarkable ability to focus on
basic science that is directly relevant to severe forms of mental
illness," commented Jack D. Barchas, M.D., Barklie McKee Henry
Professor and Chair of Psychiatry, Weill-Cornell Medical College, who
heads NARSAD's Goldman-Rakic Prize Selection Committee. "He has led
research with direct relevance to fundamental processes in brain
development, as well as our understanding of disorders such as
depression and drug abuse."
NARSAD's 2008 Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Prize for Schizophrenia
Research will be presented to Angus W. MacDonald, III, Ph.D., associate
professor of psychology and director of the Translational Research in
Cognitive and Affective Mechanisms Laboratory at the University of
Minnesota. Dr. MacDonald's research focuses on understanding the
genetic and neural causes of schizophrenia, and also encompasses ways
in which patients can improve their brain and real-world functioning.
In earlier research, he used functional neuroimaging to identify brain
regions different in patients with schizophrenia and examined whether
these same regions were affected in healthy people with a genetic
liability to schizophrenia. He initiated the Minnesota Consensus Group
and the Schizophrenia Research Forum's "What We Know" resource in which
a panel of experts, including this year's Lieber Prize winner, Dr.
Irving Gottesman, his Minnesota colleague, proposed an initial list of
bedrock facts about the illness.
Dr. Gottesman, who selected Dr. MacDonald for the Baer Prize,
which is designated for an early-career scientist, commented about him:
"Dr. MacDonald was one of the first investigators to pursue the neural
basis of schizophrenia endophenotypes using functional MRI, now
reported in the current issue of Schizophrenia Bulletin. I am confident
in placing this large bet on his future contributions."
---------------------------- Article adapted by Medical News Today from original
press release.
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For more information about NARSAD and its annual New York gala and
symposium, please visit http://www.narsad.org/.
