In Memoriam

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Martin Adler, 1929-2022 (PDF)

Dr. Martin “Marty” Adler, Fellow Emeritus of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, passed away on July 5, 2022, at the age of 92. He grew up in Washington Heights, New York, and graduated from Bronx High School of Science and New York University. A veteran of the Korean war (1953-1955), his distinguished career in pharmacology began as a graduate student at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York where he earned his Ph.D. in pharmacology in 1960. Marty was a tremendously talented and accomplished scientist. If we were to summarize his contributions, we would argue that he was “The Physiologist’s Opioid Pharmacologist” and a giant in his domain.

John Gary Csernansky, 1954–2022 (PDF)

John G. Csernansky, Fellow Emeritus of ACNP, died on May 23, 2022 at the age of 68. John was accepted into membership in 1987 and was a member of the council from 2010 to 2012. He was viewed as a transformative, thoughtful, and supportive leader by his faculty. He truly embodied a servant leader approach to his role as Chair. John dedicated his professional life to educating and training the next generation of clinicians and scientists. He mentored numerous students, residents, and faculty. He was consistently involved in teaching seminars to Northwestern’s psychiatry residents. When the current residents were asked to reflect on their experiences with John, they remarked they were grateful to have learned from such an inspiring and approachable physician scientist who regarded his role as an educator as a privilege. They looked to him as a role model who continued to be a lifelong learner regardless of his numerous accolades.

Jan Fawcett, 1934-2022 (PDF)

Jan Fawcett died on May 9, 2022 at the age of 88 following a long period of declining health. He was an extraordinary leader and innovator in psychiatry, primarily in the area of mood disorders. At the time of his death he was a professor at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Many of his research contributions came from his work as principal investigator of the Chicago site of the Clinical Studies of the NIMH Psychobiology of Depression Research Program. Jan was an outstanding advocate for the mentally ill.

Marc Caron, 1946–2022 (PDF)

Marc Caron, Member Emeritus of ACNP died on April 25, 2022 at the age of 75. Marc joined ACNP in 2004 and contributed through his career to the mission of the College, where he and his trainees frequently presented their work. Marc received his BSc in Chemistry from Laval University and his PhD from the University of Miami. He came to Duke as one of Bob Lefkowitz’ first postdoctoral associates and then was recruited to the Laval University School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor in 1975. He returned to Duke in 1977 for 45 of the 47 years of his distinguished career, achieving the rank of James B Duke Professor of Cell Biology, and Professor of Neurobiology and Medicine. His life’s work was to investigate the mechanisms of neurotransmitter transporters and GPCR receptors which could be exploited as potential pharmacotherapies for neurologic and psychiatric diseases including Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder, mood disorders and addiction.

Charles L. Bowden, 1939-2022 (PDF)

Charles L. Bowden, MD made major contributions to our knowledge about pharmacological treatments for bipolar disorder. His entire career was spent as a faculty member of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, at which he ultimately became the chair. He retired in 2017. He published nearly 500 peer-reviewed articles on a variety of topics. His primary professional focus was on mood disorders, bipolar disorder, in particular. Prior to his research the only FDAapproved treatment for bipolar disorder was lithium, and there had been no placebo-controlled studies of lithium published for 20 years. Although there had been some research on several anticonvulsants for mania, his study was the first multicenter placebo-controlled trial of any treatment for mania.

Thomas A. Ban, 1929-2022 (PDF)

Born in Budapest in November 1929, Tom studied medicine at Semmelweis University from 1948 to 1954 and trained in psychiatry at the National Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology from 1954 to 1956. Because of the Hungarian uprising he emigrated to Canada, serving as a rotating intern in 1957–58 at the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax, and as a resident psychiatrist in Montreal under Heinz Lehmann at the Verdun Protestant Hospital (VPH) in 1958–59, and under Ewen Cameron at the Allan Memorial Institute in 1959–60. In 1960 Tom joined the staff at VPH as Senior Psychiatrist and Chief of the Clinical Research Service. He received his Diploma in Psychiatry from McGill in 1960 with a thesis on “Conditioning and Psychiatry”, published in 1964. In 1959 Tom published Psychopharmacology (Williams and Wilkins), the first textbook in the field. In addition, he was active in the American College of Neuropharmacology (ACNP), where he was accepted into membership in 1966 and ultimately became a Fellow Emeritus, and the Collegium Internationale Neuropsychopharmacologicum (CINP).