Biographical Sketches of Course Directors and Presenting
Faculty (M - Z)
ALAN G. MALLINGER, M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Director, Psychopharmacology of Mania and Depression Program
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
During his career, Dr. Mallinger has pursued parallel
interests in clinical psychiatry and basic psychopharmacology research related
to mood disorders. His areas of basic research interest include laboratory
studies on cell membrane phenomena and intracellular signal transduction
processes, specifically, as these relate to the biological aspects of bipolar
disorder and to the therapeutic mechanisms of mood stabilizing drugs. His
clinical research interests include investigation of the relationship between
therapeutic outcome and brain lithium level measured by magnetic resonance
spectroscopy, therapeutic options for treatment-resistant mania, and mood
stabilizer treatment during pregnancy. He has been involved in various clinical
trials on antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and psychotherapy. Dr. Mallinger
has authored or co-authored 65 scientific articles and book chapters. He is
currently Director of the Psychopharmacology of Mania and Depression basic
research program at WPIC, as well as Medical Director of the Maintenance
Therapies in Bipolar Disorder study. He is Course Director of the
Pharmacotherapy Training in Mood Disorders Clinic for psychiatry residents at
the University of Pittsburgh.
PATRICK McKEON, M.D.,F.R.C.P.I., F.R.C.Psych.
Medical Director
St. Patrick’s Hospital
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry
Trinity College
Vice Chairman
Aware Defeat Depression
Dublin, Ireland
Professor McKeon in 1985 founded Aware Defeat Depression and
was its chairman from 1985 to 2001. Through the Depression Research Unit at St.
Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin he has conducted research into the molecular genetics
of bipolar disorder, the prevalence of depression, public attitudes toward
depression and the safety of l-tryptophan. He is currently Medical Director of
Ireland’s largest acute care psychiatric facility and Professor at Trinity
College, Dublin. His main clinical interest is in bipolar disorder and the use
of psychoeducational programs for affective disorders.
ALAN METZ, M.D.
Vice President, Neuroscience
North American Medical Affairs
GlaxoSmithKline
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
Dr. Alan Metz received his MD degree from the University of
Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa followed by completion of
postgraduate training at Oxford University and the New England Medical Center.
Dr. Metz has spent the past 10 years in the pharmaceutical industry, holding a
series of positions of increasing responsibility in the development of drugs for
psychiatric indications. He currently heads the Neuroscience Division within
North American Medical Affairs, GlaxoSmithKline based in Research Triangle Park,
North Carolina. His academic affiliations include posts as Adjunct Associate
Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina
and Associate Consulting Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke
University.
DAVID J. MIKLOWITZ, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Department of Psychology
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, Colorado
Dr. Miklowitz did his undergraduate work at Brandeis
University and his doctoral (1979-1985) and postdoctoral work (1985-88) at UCLA.
He has been at the University of Colorado, Boulder since 1989. His specialty is
in the family environmental factors associated with bipolar and schizophrenic
disorders, and in the family treatment of bipolar disorder. He has received
research investigator awards from the International Congress on Schizophrenia
Research and the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression.
He has received funding for his research from the National Institute for Mental
Health and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He has published
80 research papers and book chapters on bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. His
articles have appeared in the Archives of General Psychiatry, the British
Journal of Psychiatry, the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, Biological
Psychiatry, and the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. His book with Michael
Goldstein, published by Guilford Press, "Bipolar Disorder: A Family-Focused
Treatment Approach," won the 1998 Outstanding Research Publication Award from
the American Association of Marital and Family Therapy.
PAOLO LUCIO MORSELLI, M.D.
Vice-President, Fondazione IDEA-Milano, Italy
Secretary General, GAMIAN-Europe
Professor Morselli joined the Pharmacology Department at the
Medical College of Virginia, USA as a Fulbright-Hayes scholar after completing a
degree in Medicine and a specialization in Psychiatry from the University of
Milan, Italy in 1964. In 1967 Professor Morselli returned to Italy where he was
appointed Head of the Clinical Pharmacology Unit at the “Mario Negri Institute”
in Milano. In 1976 he took charge as the Director of the Clinical Research
Department of the Laboratoires d’Etudes e de Recherches Synthelabo. In 1990 he
was appointed Vice-President of Synthelabo Recherche Division. In 1992 he was
appointed Corporate Vice-President in charge of Medical Affairs of Synthelabo
Co. He served in this position till 1994. Professor Morselli has also served as
Associated Scientist at the “Istitute Philippe Pinel de Montreal” Canada from
1993-1994. Since 1991, he has been a “Visiting Professor” in Clinical Neuro-psychopharmacology
at the departments of Clinical Psychopharmacology and Psychiatry at “Hopital
Trias y Pujol”-Badalona, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain.
Since 1997, Dr. Morselli has served on a volunteer “pro bono”
basis, as Vice President of Fondazione-I.D.E.A. (Institute for Research and the
Prevention of Depression and Anxiety) in Milano, Italy. Since 1998, he has been
Secretary General of GAMIAN-Europe, an European Advocacy organization operating
in the field of mental disorders, and where he was one of the charter members.
He is also a charter member of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD)
where he has served on the Board from 1999 to date.
Professor Morselli is a member of several scientific
organizations and on the Editorial Board of 13 international scientific
journals. He has authored or co-authored 476 scientific publications and served
as editor or co-editor of 17 scientific specialized monographs in the field of
neuropsychiatry and clinical pharmacology.
Professor Morselli’s contributions to his field have been
recognized by the “Ambrogino d’oro” from the City of Milano in 1972, the ASPET/ILAE
research award for “outstanding contribution in the development of
anti-epileptic drugs” in 1978 and the ILAE award for “the best published
clinical trial on anti-epileptic drugs” in 1983.
In 1992, he was awarded the “Prix-Galien” in Paris for the
development of a new psychotropic agent. He was cited in the 1991 “Who’s Who in
the World” and the 1992 “Who’s Who in Science.”
BRUNO MÜLLER-OERLINGHAUSEN, Dr.med.
Professor
Sosrschergrappa Klin.
Psychopharmakologie
Psychiatrische Klinik der Freien Universitat Berlin
Berlin, Germany
Bruno Müller-Oerlinghausen was born in 1936 in Berlin. He
obtained his training in medicine at the universities of Goettingen, Munich,
Frankfort/M., Freiburg, and Berlin (West). 1964 to 1969 he underwent a
postgraduate training in pharmacology and toxicology at the Department of
Pharmacology, University of Goettingen, and qualified as a lecturer in
pharmacology and toxicology with a thesis on “Hormonal Influence on Mechanisms
of Hepatic Detoxification”. 1969 to 1971 he was assigned to the Department of
Medical Sciences (Ministry of Public Health) in Bangkok, Thailand, by the
government of the Federal Republic of Germany as an expert in pharmacology. He
built up a pharmacological research lab and trained the Thai staff in methods to
investigate the pharmacology of old-style herbal medicine. In 1971 he entered
the Department of Psychiatry, Freie Universität Berlin, for additional training
in clinical psychiatry, and in 1974 he was appointed as Chief Scientist of the
Lithium Clinic Berlin, and at the same time promoted to Professor of Clinical
Psychopharmacolgy and Chief of the Laboratory of Clinical Psychopharmacology. He
is editor-in-chief for “Pharmacopsychiatry”, and associate editor of many other
journals, such as “Bipolar Disorders”, “Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience”
or “Drug Research”. 1983 to 1987 he was elected as president of AGNP
(Association of Neuropharmacology of the German speaking countries), 1982 to
1988 he served as Councilor of the Executive Board of CIMP. Since 1995 he is the
acting chairman of the Drug Commission of the German Medical Association.
His scientific interests were mainly related to the clinical
pharmacology of antidepressants, neuroleptics and particularly lithium salts in
humans. Recent work focused on long-term effects of lithium salts with special
regard to its sertonergic action including anti-aggressive and antisuicidal
effects; serotonergic mechanisms inpatients with affective disorders; genetic
studies in depression and in clozapine-induced agranulosytosis.
WILLEM A. NOLEN, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Psychiatry, especially Pharmacotherapy
University Medical Centre Utrecht
Altrecht Institute for Mental Health Care
Utrecht, The Netherlands
Willem A. Nolen studied medicine at the University of Leiden,
and was trained in psychiatry at Psychiatric Centre Bloemendaal (nowadays
Parnassia), The Hague, The Netherlands.
Besides his appointment at the University of Utrecht he is
also affiliated at Altrecht Insitute for Mental Health Care in Utrecht, where he
is principal investigator of the Utrecht site of the international Stanley
Foundation Bipolar Network and is co-chairing a Stanley Foundation International
Research Center for studies in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
His major research interest is mood disorders, both bipolar
disorder and major depression, in which he is doing research on the
epidemiology, etiology, long-term course and treatment. A main part of his
research has focused on the different pharmacological treatment options in
bipolar and unipolar mood disorders and their place in guidelines and
algorithms. He has published 187 papers, 51 of them in international journals or
as chapters in international books.
He is member of the editorial board of the Dutch Journal of
Medicine (NTvG) and the Dutch Journal of Psychiatry (TvP) and is editorial
consultant for several international journal. He is member of the Institutional
Review Board (Medical Ethical Review Committee-METC) of the University Medical
Centre Utrecht.
MICHAEL W. OTTO, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Harvard Medical School
Massachusetts General Hospital
Boston, Massachusetts
Michael W. Otto, Ph.D. is Director of the Cognitive-Behavior Therapy Program at
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Associate Professor of Psychology at
Harvard Medical School. Dr. Otto specializes in the cognitive-behavioral
treatment of anxiety and mood disorders, and has developed clinical and research
programs at MGH for the treatment of panic disorder, social phobia, bipolar
disorder, substance dependence, and medication discontinuation in patients with
panic disorder and major depression. Dr. Otto's research activities are closely
tied to his clinical interests and target investigations of the etiology and
treatment outcome of anxiety and affective disorders, particularly the
development and testing of new treatments including the combination of
pharmacologic and cognitive-behavioral strategies and interventions for
treatment-refractory and substance-dependent patients. He has published over 100
articles, chapters, and books spanning these research interests. His books
include Challenges in Clinical Practice: Pharmacologic and Psychosocial
Strategies, co-edited with Drs. Pollack and Rosenbaum, and the Stopping Anxiety
Medication treatment manuals for patients and therapists. Dr. Otto is a fellow
of the American Psychological Association, directs fellowship and internship
training in cognitive-behavior therapy at MGH, and has been a regular provider
of continuing education and continuing medical education workshops across the
United States and abroad.
ATUL C. PANDE, M.D., FRCPC
Vice President
Pfizer Global Research & Development
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Dr. Pande is a Vice President in the research and
development organization of Pfizer, Inc, and is involved in managing the
portfolio of compounds in clinical development for central nervous system
diseases. Prior to this role, Dr. Pande established and headed the Psychiatry
Clinical Research group for Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research (now part of
Pfizer, Inc). Dr. Pande is a psychiatrist who previously held the positions of
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School
and then Clinical Research Physician with Lilly Research Laboratories. Dr.
Pande’s research interests have covered mood and anxiety disorders, Alzheimer’s
disease and neurotrauma.
ROBERT M. POST, M.D.
Chief, Biological Psychiatry Branch
Head, Stanley Foundation Bipolar Network
National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Health
Bethesda, Maryland
Dr. Post graduated from Yale University in 1964,
the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1968, was a medical intern
at the Einstein School of Medicine in 1969, and psychiatry resident at
Massachusetts General Hospital for one year in 1970 before joining the NIMH.
There he was clinical fellow, Section Chief, and then Chief of the Biological
Psychiatry Branch for the past 18 years. His career has focused on better
understanding and treating patients with refractory unipolar and bipolar
illness. He helped to pioneer the introduction of the anticonvulsant
carbamazepine as a major therapeutic modality in lithium-refractory bipolar
patients and has studied other anticonvulsants including valproate, nimodipine,
gabapentin, and lamotrigine. Exploration of some of the molecular mechanisms
underlying behavioral sensitization to psychomotor stimulants and
electrophysiological kindling has enabled him to reconceptualize mechanisms
underlying the evolution os some neuropsychiatric illnesses at the level of
change in gene expression. He is the winner of major research awards from the
Society of Biological Psychiatry, APA, ACNP, Anna Monika Foundation, NARSAD, and
NDMDA, and is on the editorial boards of more than ten journals. He has
published more than 700 papers and has most recently helped to organize and
direct the Stanley Foundation Bipolar Network in an attempt to expand the
knowledge base and treatment approaches to this illness.
CATRIEN G. REICHART, M.D.
Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
Academic Hospital Rotterdam-Sophia
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Catrien G. Reichart studied medicine at the
University of Utrecht. Subsequently she was trained in psychiatry in Amersfoort
and Bergen op Zoom and in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Academic
Medical Center in Amsterdam. She is also trained as a child and adolescent
psychotherapist.
Currently she is head of the adolescent inpatient
unit of the Psychiatric Department of Academic Hospital Rotterdam-Sophia, where
she supervises residents and treats patients with mood disorders, first
psychotic episodes and eating disorders. She is collaborator on a prospective
study among 140 children of parent(s) with bipolar disorder in the Netherlands
which is partly funded by the Theodore and Vada Stanley Foundation. She is also
conducting a clinical trial with mood stabilizers in adolescent patients with a
bipolar disorder.
A. JOHN RUSH, M.D.
Betty Jo Hay Distinguished Chair in Mental Health
Rosewood Corporation Chair in Biomedical Science
Professor and Vice-Chaiman for Research
Department of Psychiatry
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Dallas, Texas
After graduating from Princeton University, Dr.
Rush completed his MD at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons
(New York City), an internship in internal medicine at Northwestern University, Passavant Memorial Hospital (Chicago), and his residency in psychiatry at the
University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia). Dr. Rush is a Fellow of the American
College of Psychiatry, the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and the
American Psychiatric Association. He is former President of both the Society of
Biological Psychiatry and the Society for Psychotherapy Research. He chaired the
DSM-IV Work Group on Mood Disorders and the Panel on Practice Guidelines for
Depression in Primary Care for the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.
Dr. Rush has also served on review committees of the National Insitute of Mental
Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs. He is an editorial board member
or reviewer for over a dozen psychiatric journals.
Honors include Exemplary Psychiatrist of the Year
by the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians, the Gerald L. Klerman Lifetime
Research Award (National Depressive and Manic Depressive Association), the
Strecker Award (Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital), the Charles C. Burlingame
Award (Institute for Living), the Mood Disorder Research Award (American College
of Psychiatrists), the Edward J. Sachar Award (Columbia College of Physicians
and Surgeons) and the Award in Mood Disorders Research from NARSAD for his
research, teaching, and clinical work. For over 30 years, he has conducted
clinical investigations of both biological and psychosocial issues in mood
disorders in adults, children, and adolescents. He has promoted the application
of clinical research findings to practice to improve the diagnosis and treatment
of these patients. Dr. Rush has published over 245 papers, 73 chapters, and 10
books.
GARY S. SACHS, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
Harvard Medical School
Director, Bipolar Clinic and Research Program
Boston, Massachusetts
Gary S. Sachs, M.D., is Director of the Bipolar
Treatment Center, Director of the Bipolar Mood Disorder Program in the Clinical
Psychopharmacology Unit, Director of the Harvard Bipolar Research Program, and
an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), in
Boston, Massachusetts.
A 1982 graduate of the University of Maryland
School of Medicine, Dr. Sachs has held such distinguished positions as Chief
Resident, Acute Psychiatry Service, Clinical Fellow in Psychiatry, and Director
of the Chronobiology Section in the Clinical Pyschopharmacology Unit as MGH.
Among his many achievements and accolades, Dr. Sachs has received the
Dupont-Warren Fellow from the Harvard Medical School, as well as the Dunlop
Award for his achievements in psychiatric research and writing.
A pioneer in the understanding and treatment of
bipolar disorder, Dr. Sachs sits on the review boards of such nationally
recognized publications as The American Journal of Psychiatry, the New England
Journal of Medicine and the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. In addition, Dr.
Sachs is currently a member of such notable medical associations as the American
Psychiatric Association, and the American Medial Association.
Dr. Sachs is principal investigator for the
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) sponsored study entitled, the
Systematic Treatment Enhancement Program for Bipolar Disorder (STEP B-D). STEP
B-D is the first-ever, long-term study that emphasized the continuity of care
for all people with bipolar disorder.
AMY SCHLONSKI, L.S.W.
Therapist
Bipolar Services Clinic
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Amy Schlonski, L.S.W. has a Bachelors of Science
Degree in Human Development and Family Studies from the Pennsylvania State
University and a Masters of Social Work from the New Mexico State University.
For the past 12 years, she has been practicing individual and family
psychotherapy with diverse populations. Since 1998, Ms. Schlonski has been at
the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Disorder Services (CABS) Clinic, using
cognitive behaviors therapy and family focused therapy as an adjunct treatment
of Bipolar Disorder.
MOGENS SCHOU, M.D., DR.
MED. SCI.
Honorary President
International Society for Bipolar Disorders
Emeritus Professor
The Psychiatric Hospital
Denmark
Mogens Schou was born in Copenhagen 1918. After graduation from Copenhagen
University Medical School in 1944 he trained in clinical psychiatry at Danish,
Norwegian and Swedish hospitals and in experimental biology at institutes in
Copenhagen, New York, and Aarhus.
From 1951 Dr. Schou worked at the psychiatric
hospital, Risskov, Denmark, from 1956 as head of its Psychopharmacology Research
Unit. In 1971 he was appointed to a newly created chair of biological psychiatry
at Aarhus University. He retired in 1988.
In 1952 Dr. Schou and his associates gave lithium to their first manic patient,
and in 1954 they published the outcome of a partly open, partly randomized and
placebo-controlled trial, the first of its kind in psychiatric pharmacotherapy.
It fully confirmed the antimanic effect of lithium, first observed in 1949 by
John Cade. In the 1960’s the Danish psychiatrist Paul Christian Baastrup and
Mogens Schou carried out a study of lithium treatment in patients with recurrent
manic-depressive disorder. It ran over six and a half years, involved 88
patients, and was published in 1967. It showed that long-term lithium treatment
was associated with a marked (87 per cent) and long-lasting fall in the
frequency of manic and depressive recurrences, that the effect was the same in
bipolar and unipolar patients, and that the efficacy of lithium did not
disappear with time or after interruption and subsequent resumption of the
treatment.
This was the first long-term treatment, which
could break the almost inexorable development of manic and depressive
recurrences. Prophylactic or recurrence-preventive lithium treatment was taken
into use by other psychiatrists, who confirmed its efficacy. The Danish trial
was, however, criticized on methodological ground by psychiatrists who had never
themselves given lithium. Baastrup, Schou, and their associates now carried out
two randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, prospective discontinuation
trials. They were terminated after six months by a sequential analysis and
showed a highly significant difference between lithium and placebo in both
bipolar and unipolar patients. After publication of this study in 1970, lithium
became fist-choice mood stabilizer in bipolar disorder, whereas its considerable
ability to prevent recurrent depressions has been disregarded. Antidepressant
drugs have dominated this field, even if an extensive comparative study has
shown lithium significantly more efficacious than amitriptyline.
Over the years Dr. Schou has published more than 530 articles, books and book
chapters. His studies have dealt with the effect of lithium treatment on
artistic creativity, treatment management and monitoring, treatment regimen,
somatic and psychological side effects, the effects of lithium treatment on
kidney and thyroid function, interaction with other drugs, acute and late
effects of intoxication. Together with an international research team, IGSLI,
which he initiated, Dr. Schou has studied the effect of long-term lithium
treatment on mortality and suicidal behavior as well as the genetics of
‘excellent lithium responders’. Since lithium cannot be patented, it has
received limited commercial support, and Dr. Schou has therefore lectured
extensively to psychiatrists, hospital physicians, general practitioners, and
patient groups. He has written books (that have appeared in twelve languages) in
non-technical language for patients and relatives.
Dr. Schou has received a number of honors and
awards, including the Danish Alfred Benzon and Ernst Carlsen Prizes 1967 and
1968, first Prize from the German Anna-Monika Stiftung 1969 (for work carried
out with J.Angst, P.C.Baastrup, P.Grof and P.Weis), the German Paul Martini
Prize 1969 (with the same), the Danish Novo Foundation Prize 1971, the
International Scientific Kittay Foundation Award 1974 (shared with John Cade),
the Taylor Manor Hospital Psychiatric Award 1978, the Great Nordic Fernström
Prize 1979, the John Cade Memorial Award 1982, the National Depressive and
Manic-Depressive Association's Abraham Lincoln Award 1987, the Mary and Albert
Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award 1987, the American David R. Wood Award
1988, the Lundbeck Foundation's Research Prize 1988, the International Society
of Lithium Research’s Mogens Schou Prize for Lifetime Achievement 1995, and the
CINP Pioneers in Psychopharmacology Award 2000.
Dr. Schou is honorary Fellow of the Royal College
of Psychiatrists (Great Britain), Collegium Internationale
Neuro-Psychopharmacologium, the British Association of Psychopharmacology, the
Scandinavian Society for Psychopharmacology, and many other scientific
societies. He holds honorary doctorates from universities in Marseille, Munich,
and Prague.
Dr. Schou and his wife have four daughters, three
sons-in-law, and seven grandchildren.
GREGORY SIMON, M.D., M.P.H.
Investigator
Center for Health Studies
Group Health Cooperative
Research Associate Professor
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington
Dr. Simon is a senior investigator at the Center
for Health Studies of Group Health Cooperative and holds a faculty appointment
at the University of Washington. His previous research has examined a range of
topics related to affective disorders including epidemiology, societal burden,
quality of care, and cost-effectiveness of alternative treatment programs. His
current research focuses on the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of
systematic care programs for unipolar depression and bipolar disorder. Dr. Simon
serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Depressive and
Manic-Depressive Association and on the editorial board of Psychological
Medicine, Effective Clinical Practice, General Hospital Psychiatry, and the
Western Journal of Medicine. Dr. Simon continues to practice adult psychiatry
(approximately 40% time) at Group Health Cooperative.
JAIR C. SOARES, M.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Director, Neurochemical Brain Imaging Laboratory
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Dr. Jair C. Soares graduated in 1990 from the
University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine, Brazil. After psychiatric
residencies at the University of Sao Paulo (1991-1993), and at the Western
Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh (1993-1997), he took
a brain imaging fellowship at the department of Psychiatry at Yale University
(1997-1999). He has held an appointment as an Assistant Professor of Clinical
Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine since 1997, and in
1999 joined its faculty on a full-time basis as an Assistant Professor of
Psychiatry. Dr. Soares had had extensive clinical research experience in the
field of mood disorders, and expertise with neuroimaging modalities as research
tools to investigate these disorders. Dr. Soares has published several
peer-reviewed articles and book chapters in the psychiatric literature. Since
1998, he has been co-editing a new peer-review journal called “Bipolar Disorders
– An International Journal of Psychiatry and Neurosciences”. He recently
co-edited a textbook on "Bipolar Disorders - Basic Mechanisms and Therapeutic
Implications". He currently directs the Neurochemical Brain Imaging Laboratory
at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of
Medicine, where he is conducting brain imaging studies that attempt to elucidate
causation of bipolar and unipolar mood disorders, and the mechanisms of action
of treatments for these conditions.
JITSCHAK STOROSUM, M.D.
Psychiatrist
Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam
Clinical Assessor
Medicines Evaluation Board of the Netherlands
Dr. Storosum has published articles on AIDS and
psychiatry and on methodological and clinical issues in psychopharmacology
studies. Moreover he wrote three thrillers (the Medicine Makers awarded the
Havink Award for best debut). Dr. Storosum is supervisor at the psychiatric
inpatient department of the Academic Medical Center and treats mainly
schizophrenic patients and patients with mood disorders.
MICHAEL E. THASE, M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Michael E. Thase, M.D., is a Professor of
Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Western
Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. He is an active clinical investigator, whose
research focuses on the assessment and treatment of mood disorders, including
the correlates of differential response to various treatments for depression. A
1979 graduate of the Ohio State University College of Medicine, Dr. Thase has
directed the Depression Treatment and Research Program at the University of
Pittsburgh since its inception in 1987 and is now the Chief of Adult Academic
Psychiatry. A Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Thase has
authored or co-authored over 325 scientific articles, book chapters, and books.
LEONARDO TONDO, M.D.
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard University and McLean Hospital
Belmont, Massachusetts
Assistant Professor in Psychiatry
Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università degli Studi di Cagliari
Director, Centro Lucio Bini, Stanley Foundation Research Center
Cagliari, Sardinia
Dr. Tondo is the director of Centro Bini in
Cagliari, Sardinia, since its foundation in 1977. This outpatient clinic
specializing in the treatment of mood disorders has been designated as a
Research Center by the Theodore and Vada Stanley Foundation since 1998. Dr.
Tondo completed his medical education at the University of Rome in 1974 and in
1980 received a permanent appointment as assistant professor at the University
of Cagliari. He was a visiting scientist at the Psychohormonal Unit at Johns
Hopkins University in 1980, lecturer in psychopharmacology at the University of
Pennsylvania in 1983, and a researcher in psychobiology at the University of
California at Los Angeles in 1986. Since 1995 he has been a research associate
in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard University and the McLean Division of
Massachusetts General Hospital with Professor Ross J. Baldessarini, with whom he
organized the International Consortium for Bipolar Disorder Research. His
research is concentrated on the course and treatment of bipolar disorders. He
oversees clinical care at one of the largest private psychiatric outpatient
clinics in Italy and treats mood disorder patients himself. In collaboration
with Professor Baldessarini and other international colleagues, he has
contributed to quantifying the effects of discontinuing maintenance treatment in
bipolar disorders and on the protective effects of lithium treatment on suicidal
behavior in such patients. He has been the recipient of NARSAD Young
Investigator and Independent Investigator Awards, and grants from the Stanley
Foundation and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Dr. Tondo is the
author of more than one hundred publications, is chief editor of the Italian
Journal of Addictions, and reviewer for the Archives of General Psychiatry,
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, and Bipolar Disorder. He is vice president of
the Aretaeus Association, an international organization that encourages research
on mood and anxiety disorders. He is also a consultant to the Italian National
Press and contributes to newspapers and radio programs on mental health matters.
PER VESTERGAARD, Dr.Med.Sc.
Professor of Psychiatry
Aarhus University
Chairman of Clinical Psychiatry, Department A
Aarhus University Psychiatric Hospital
Risskov, Denmark
Dr. Vestergaard is Professor of clinical
psychiatry of Aarhus University, Denmark, and chief of clinical services at the
University Psychiatric Hospital. He founded the Mood Disorders Research Unit and
the Lithium Clinic of the Aarhus Psychiatric Hospital. He has conducted research
and published articles on the clinical pharmacology of lithium, on the treatment
efficacy of old and new antidepressant drugs, on affective disorders in general
and bipolar disorder in particular. He was a co-founder of the Danish University
Antidepressant Group (DUAG). He has published under-graduate textbooks on
psychiatry and is an editorial consultant on several psychiatric journals
including Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica and Pharmacopsychiatry. Dr. Vestergaard
is a board member of the Scandinavian College of Neuro-psychopharmacology (SCNP)
and a recipient of Stanley Foundation grants.
ADELE C. VIGUERA, M.D.
Associate Director
Perinatal and Reproductive Psychiatry
Clinical Research Program
Massachusetts General Hospital
Instructor in Psychiatry
Harvard Medical School
Boston, Massachusetts
Adele C. Viguera, M.D., is the Associate Director
of the Perinatal and Reproductive Psychiatry Program at Massachusetts General
Hospital and an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston,
Massachusetts. Dr. Viguera received her M.D. from Dartmouth Medical School in
Hanover, New Hampshire, and served her internship and residency at Massachusetts
General Hospital and McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts.
The recipient of several honors and awards, Dr.
Viguera is a recent recipient of an NIMH sponsored K23 Mentored Patient-Oriented
Research Career Development Award as well as a NARSAD Young Investigators Award
for her project on neonatal outcome following exposure to Lithium: What Happens
to Lithium Babies? Her current research interests include the course and
treatment of bipolar mood disorders during pregnancy and the postpartum period
and the effects of prenatal lithium exposure on infant development. Her work has
been published in a number of scientific journals and books.
SUSAN WASSICK, R.N.
Coordinator
Child and Adolescent Bipolar Services Clinic
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Susan Wassick is a Registered Nurse sho has been
working in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for 20 years. She has extensive
experience in evaluation and treatment of children and adolescents with mood
disorders. She has been the nurse clinician at the Child and Adolescent Bipolar
Services Clinic since it opened in 1998.
ROBERT M. WETTSTEIN, M.D.
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Dr. Wettstein is in the private practice of
psychiatry, with an emphasis on legal and ethical practice issues. He is a
consultant to the state licensing boards in medicine, psychology, nursing,
dentistry, chiropractic, and law, and evaluates impaired professionals. He also
conducts independent examinations regarding disability, workers compensation,
and criminal responsibility.
Between 1984 and 1996, Dr. Wettstein was on the
full-time faculty at WPIC, and was codirector of the Law and Psychiatry Program.
He was involved in clinical consultations, treatment, and research activities in
the law and psychiatry area. In 1996, he was awarded the “Golden Apple” award
for excellence in teaching by the residents of WPIC.
Dr. Wettstein was Editor of the quarterly journal
Behavioral Sciences and the Law until 1996. He is coauthor with Barbara Weiner,
Esq. of Legal Issues in Mental Health Care. His edited volume, Treatment of
Offenders with Mental Disorders, was published in 1998. He is also author of
many other publications on legal and ethical issues in mental health care.
He served as Vice President of the American
Academy of Psychiatry and the Law from 1999-2000.
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