In Memoriam

  • Martin Adler, 1929-2022

    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. He moved to Philadelphia in 1960 to join the faculty in the Department of Pharmacology at Temple University School of Medicine where he spent his entire career of over 60 years. He was elected a Member of ACNP in 1976. 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. His earliest work focused on the anti-convulsant effects of opioids, in which he made the seminal observation that lower seizure thresholds were part of the opioid withdrawal syndrome, a key finding that still has important relevance today. Marty also performed critical work in characterizing the effects of opioids on thermoregulation and analgesia, with a focus on identifying key roles for different opioid receptors and brain sites where opioids produce their neuropharmacological effects.

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  • George K. Aghajanian, 1932-2023

    George K. Aghajanian, ACNP Fellow Emeritus, died July 4, 2023 at the age of 91. He was elected to membership in 1970. He was one of psychiatry’s founding pioneers in neuroscience who contributed many firsts to the field by combining research carried out in multiple domains, including cell biology, biochemistry, electrophysiology, and pharmacology. George’s research is also responsible for the very first psychiatric drug treatment developed from an understanding of its mechanism of action and translated from that basic neuroscience research to human care, i.e. he demonstrated that the hyperactivity exhibited by noradrenergic neurons in the locus coeruleus of rats, that were withdrawing from chronic morphine administration, was eliminated by clonidine. In 1975, for outstanding research in the field of Neuropsychopharmacology, he was the second recipient of the Daniel Efron Award. In 2006 he received the ACNP Julius Axelrod Award for his mentorship. Among his many other honors, nine in total, were the Lieber Prize for research on Schizophrenia from NARSAD and election to the National Academy of Medicine.

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  • Bernard W. Agranoff, 1926-2022

    Bernard W. Agranoff, Fellow Emeritus of ACNP died on October 21, 2022, at the age of 96. ‘Bernie’ was accepted into ACNP in 1968 and served on the Education and Training-, Program and Scientific Communications-, Credentials- and Constitution and Rules Committees between 1989 and 2001. Bernie was a giant in the field of neuroscience and made numerous seminal discoveries. In the mid-1960s, he was the first to demonstrate that protein synthesis was a prerequisite for the formation of long-term memory in goldfish. His ground-breaking studies, which were featured in an article in Scientific American and reprinted 100,000 times, was the stimulus for several prominent neuroscientists to enter the field. Bernie considered that neuroplasticity was essential for learning and memory and subsequently pioneered an optic nerve regeneration model to identify the biochemical mechanisms underlying the brain’s capacity to remodel itself. In addition, Bernie had a longstanding interest in the role played by inositol lipids in cell signaling events within the nervous system.

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  • Lori Altshuler, 1957-2015

    Lori had an unparalleled intellectual curiosity, analytical mind, as well as a warm and engaging personality. She formed friendly collegial relationships with equally driven academics in three distinct fields: (1) using neuroimaging to assess underlying causes of mood disorders; (2) conducting clinical trials to assess treatments for bipolar disorder; (3) investigating mood disorders in women during pregnancy, postpartum, and postmenopause.

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  • Seymour Antelman, 1938-2011

    Dr. Seymour (Sy) Antelman was internationally known for the originality and importance of his work on biological effects of stress and the effects of psychotropic drugs on the brain and behavior.

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  • Frank J. Ayd Jr., 1920–2008

    In 1953 Dr. Ayd became the first clinician in the United States authorized by the FDA to study chlorpromazine in patients. In 1955 he published the results, initiating the modern era of psychopharmacology in this country.

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  • Thomas A. Ban, 1929-2022

    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. He retired in 1995 as Professor of Psychiatry. 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).

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  • George Bartzokis, 1956-2014

    Dr. George Bartzokis, a neuroscientist who originated the theory that the degeneration of the brain’s myelin contributed to many developmental and degenerative diseases, such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s, died of pancreatic cancer on August 22. He was 58.

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  • Henri Begleiter, 1935-2006

    Henri Begleiter, Ph.D., was a leader in the fields of neuroscience, alcoholism and genetics. Dr. Beigleiter was instrumental in organizing the largest study in the world focused on the genetics of alcoholism.

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  • Alan A. Boulton, 1936-2010

    Dr. Alan Arthur Boulton was a pioneer in quantitative research on trace amines including 2-phenylethylamine, tyramine, octopamine and tryptamine, and their involvement in the etiology and pharmacotherapy of psychiatric and neurologic disorders.

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  • Charles L. Bowden, 1939-2022

    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.

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  • Joseph V. Brady, 1922-2011

    Obituaries in the major newspapers reported Joseph Vincent Brady, Ph.D. as the researcher who sent trained monkeys and chimpanzees into orbit to prove that outer space was safe for astronauts.

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  • Naomi Breslau, 1932-2018

    Dr. Breslau made important contributions to understanding the epidemiology of an unusually large number of health outcomes, including chronic disease in children, migraine, mental illness – especially post-traumatic stress disorder, and outcomes in low birthweight children. She also studied problems of sleep, the effects of smoking and addiction, and the determinants of IQ.

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  • Wagner H. Bridger

    Wagner H. Bridger, M.D., published over 100 papers, was a founding member of the Society of Biological Psychiatry and President of the Society in 1988 and Editor of the journal from 1992-1997.

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  • John J. Burns, 1920-2007

    John J. Burns, Ph.D., supported basic science research more than any other pharmaceutical executive, both within his company as well as in the academic community. One of his most outstanding contributions was the establishment of the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology.

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  • Enoch Callaway, 1924-2014

    On Friday, August 15, 2014, Enoch Callaway III or “Noch” as his many friends and colleagues called him, passed away peacefully with his family present at his tranquil hilltop home in Tiburon California. Noch was a Founding Member of the ACNP and so much more.

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  • José Miguel Cañive, 1941-2021

    José was born in La Habana, Cuba, on July 26, 1941. He left his native land shortly after Fidel Castro came to power and immigrated to Spain to study medicine. He received his medical
    degree from Complutense University in Madrid, Spain, in 1966. José was truly a global citizen who spoke several languages and enjoyed world travel. He attained significant national and
    international reputation and received many awards and honors. He was accepted for ACNP membership in 2010 and subsequently became a Fellow in 2016.

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  • Arvid Carlsson, 1923-2018

    Dr. Arvid Carlsson, MD, PhD was a Swedish pharmacologist and Professor Emeritus at Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg. His foundational role in the development of biological psychiatry and neurology in Scandinavia, and beyond, is reflected in the establishment of the Scandinavian College of Neuropsychopharmacology in 1960 with Arvid as its first president.

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  • Marc Caron, 1946–2022

    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. 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. He began contributing to the field in his postdoctoral work which developed the first radioligand binding assay for the betaadrenergic receptor.

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  • C Jelleff Carr, 1910-2005

    C. Jelleff Carr Ph.D., a founding father of the International Society of Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, died on February 15, 2005.

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  • Bernard J. Carroll, 1941-2018

    Dr. Bernard J “Barney” Carroll was a pioneer and leader in clinical neuroendocrinology, best known for his development of the low-dose dexamethasone suppression test (DST), a biomarker of severe, melancholic depression that he meticulously studied for its applicability to differential diagnosis and the progress of treatment.

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  • Yue Chen, 1959-2017

    Yue Chen carved a distinguished professional career as a prominent neuroscientist.  Dr. Chen and his colleagues found enhanced local processing of dynamic visual information in adolescents with autism, providing new support for the long-held hypothesis of enhanced perceptual processing in this  neurodevelopmental disorder, and highlighted the potential of an intervention strategy to improve perceptual function in patients with autism spectrum disorder.

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  • Paula J Clayton, 1934-2021

    Paula J. Clayton, MD died on September 4 in Pasadena, California after a short illness at the age of 86. She broke new ground in psychiatry in many ways —as a leading member of the Washington University group that revolutionized psychiatric diagnosis in America: as the first woman chair of major academic departments of psychiatry, and by her new findings on the diagnosis, clinical course, and treatment of depression. She was a beloved figure in psychiatry and a role model for the few women in psychiatry at the time in leadership roles or who aspired to them. She lit up any room that she entered with her warm smile, her sense of humor, and her sharp thinking.

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  • Jonathan O. Cole, 1925-2009

    Dr. Cole, a founder and early ACNP president, received the first Paul Hoch Distinguished Service Award. As CINP secretary, 1965-1969, his contributions were recognized with the coveted Pioneers in Psychopharmacology award.

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  • Carmen Keith Conners, 1933-2017

    Carmen Keith Conners is widely recognized as a pioneer in the methodology of pediatric psychopharmacology, beginning with his work in the early 1960s on use of amphetamines and methylphenidate in children with disruptive behavior disorders.

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  • Leonard Cook, 1924-2016

    With the death of Leonard Cook on 30 January 2016, the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology lost an important scientist and a significant contributor to the emerging disciplines of behavioral pharmacology and drug discovery. He was a founding member of the ACNP and the first industrial investigator to serve as President in 1982.

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  • Alec Coppen, 1923-2019

    Dr. Alec Coppen was an outstanding clinical psychopharmacologist who enriched the research in the field of biological psychiatry and psychopharmacology internationally. This was achieved through his leadership of both national and international institutions and organizations. He was an emeritus member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP).

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  • Erminio Costa, 1924-2009

    Dr. Costa’s enthusiasm and ability to translate scientific hypotheses into successful experiments were contagious for all his collaborators—more than 300 in 60 years.

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  • John Craig, 1920-2012

    John C. Craig, an Emeritus Professor of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, died suddenly on Sept. 26th of complications related to cardiac disease.

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  • John Gary Csernansky, 1954–2022

    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.

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  • Svein Dahl, 1942-2012

    Svein Dahl, Professor and Chair of Pharmacology at the University of Tromsø, and an ACNP Fellow, succumbed to cancer on December 8th, 2012. He died at his home near Tromsø, Norway, the city where he was born in 1942.

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  • Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado, 1915-2011

    Described as “a technological wizard”, Jose Delgado, invented the “stimoceiver”; implanted electrodes which established two way communications with the brain in mobile animals allowing Jose to stimulate different regions, producing changes in affect and behavior.

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  • Thomas P. Detre, 1924-2010

    Thomas P. Detre was a renowned psychiatrist, academic leader, health care visionary and a long-term member of the ACNP. His creative approaches provided a model for the treatment of mental and addictive disorders to move closer to that in other domains of medicine.

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  • Peter Dews, 1922-2012

    Peter B. Dews (1922–2012) passed away November 2 in the Brigham and Women’s Hospital a few steps from Harvard Medical School where he spent the majority of his career and where his intellectual and research efforts shaped the way in which the behavioral effects of drugs are studied.

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  • Edward F. Domino, 1924-2021

    Edward F. Domino, Ph.D., the pioneering neuropharmacologist and a coiner of the term “dissociative anesthesia” died on November 3, 2021 at the age of 96. At the time of his death, Ed was Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan, where he spent nearly all of his career. Ed’s early training in both electrical engineering and pharmacology set the stage for his later career studying the electrophysiologic effects of drugs. Ed and his collaborators pioneered the study of phencyclidine and ketamine. For many, Ed’s pivotal characterization of the behavioral and neural effects of the phencyclidine derivative, ketamine, stands as the key accomplishment of his career. Ketamine was shorteracting and less potent than phencyclidine. Ketamine’s ease of use, safety, tolerability, and antinociceptive effects have made it among the most successful human and veterinary anesthetic agents, globally. Ed’s seemingly limitless passion for scientific innovation led him to make contributions to many areas of science throughout his long career.

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  • Ronald S. Duman, 1954-2020

    Ronald S. Duman, Ph.D. was the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Neuroscience at the Yale University School of Medicine and Director of the Abraham Ribicoff Research Facilities of the Connecticut Mental Health Center. He was the recipient of two of the most prestigious prizes for mood disorders research, the Colvin Prize of the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation and the Anna-Monika Foundation Prize. The Duman laboratory focused on identifying fundamental neurobiological mechanisms underlying the effects of stress on the brain. He was a pioneer in identifying how antidepressant treatments reverse structural changes produced by stress in both animal models and studies of human post-mortem brain tissue.

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  • Samuel Eiduson, 1918-2007

    Samuel Eiduson, Ph.D., one of neurochemistry’s early pioneers, was the prime mover of the four authors of ‘Biochemistry and Behaviour’, which became the first major text for many subsequent investigators.

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  • Joel Elkes, 1913-2015

    Joel Elkes, a founding member and first president of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, passed away on 30 October 2015. He remained active in the ACNP for over 50 years initiating the Joel Elkes young scientist research award in 1986. His pioneering achievements have led to receipt of many awards and the accolade ‘Father of Neuropsychopharmacology’. He was a scientist, mentor, humanistic educator, and an artist.

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  • Everett Ellinwood Jr., 1934-2008

    Everett served us in many capacities. He was President of the Society of Biological Psychiatry and Councilor of ACNP. He was a consultant to several Task Forces of the American Psychiatric Association. He served 5 years on the APA Research Council. He was chairman of the FDA Drug Scheduling Advisory Committee; Chairman of the Drug Abuse Research Review Committee for NIDA; he served on the ADAMHA AIDS Advisory Committee and on the NIMH Research Scientist Development Review Committee.

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  • S. J. Enna, 1944-2023

    He was a Fellow Emeritus, admitted to ACNP in 1983. He earned a Masters degree and a PhD in Pharmacology at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His focus on neuropsychopharmacology began with a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Texas, Dallas with PA Shore on biogenic amines. Over the years, he served on the editorial advisory boards of over a dozen journals in pharmacology and neuroscience including the Journal of Neuroscience, Neuropharmacology and Brain Research. He was the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (1998–2002), of Biochemical Pharmacology (2003–present) and series editor of Advances in Pharmacology (2009–present). He was elected to be Secretary General of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacologists, which led to world travel for him and his wife, Colleen, and the development of numerous foreign friends. Dr. Enna received several distinguished awards including the John Jacob Abel Award for most promising pharmacologic scientist under 40 (ASPET), the Daniel Efron Award for basic research (ACNP) and the Otto Krayer Award for lifetime achievements in Pharmacology (ASPET).

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  • Dwight L. Evans, 1947-2022

    Dwight Evans, MD, MS died unexpectedly at his home in Newtown Square, a suburb of Philadelphia, on November 19, 2022, at the age of 75. He graduated from Elisabethtown College, received an MS degree from Bucknell University, and his MD degree from Temple University. He received his psychiatry residency training at the University of North Carolina which was completed in 1979. He was quickly appointed to the faculty at UNC and I had the distinct pleasure of working with him, first at UNC and for the many years that followed. Dwight was remarkably understated as regards his own accomplishments, almost to a fault, as he spent much of his professional energy promoting the careers of his colleagues and mentees. He served as the chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Florida from 1992–1997 and was then recruited to lead the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, a position he held from 1997–2016. Having been one of the longest-serving psychiatry chairs in the history of Penn Medicine, he remained on the faculty as the Roehrhoff Professor of Psychiatry. His research accomplishments in the area of stress, depression, and more specifically in the psychiatric manifestations of HIV are manifold and he was continuously funded by NIMH with a recent successful competitive renewal of his center grant. He was a fellow of the ACNP and was accepted into membership in 1992.

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  • Jan Fawcett, 1934-2022

    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.

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  • Irwin Feinberg, 1928-2022

    It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of Irwin (Bob) Feinberg, an outstanding scientist, mentor, and physician, on August 25, 2022, aged 94. His research career spanned more than six decades from his first publication in 1956 to his most recent in 2022. As one of the first to recognize the value of studying sleep, he was a founding member of the Sleep Research Society and a recipient of their Distinguished Scientist award in 1996. He was a Member Emeritus of ACNP, and was accepted into ACNP membership in 1981. His approximately 200 peer reviewed publications covered a wide range of topics from the mechanisms of hallucinations and models of sleep regulation to his theory on schizophrenia, which was 40 years ahead of its time.

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  • Wayne Fenton, 1953-2006

    Wayne Fenton, M.D., is best known for his ‘behind the scenes’ efforts at the NIMH to transform clinical research. In 2003, recognizing the cognitive deficits in schizophrenia and the largest source of disability for many patients, Fenton led landmark NIMH efforts targeting cognitive impairments for people with schizophrenia.

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  • Steven H Ferris, 1943-2017

    Steven H Ferris, PhD, was the consummate ‘gentleman scholar’, who was an active member of ACNP since 1982. He was internationally recognized for his contributions to the cognitive assessment, pathophysiology, and treatment of patients with age-associated dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

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  • Ronald R Fieve, 1930-2018

    Ronald R Fieve completed medical school at Harvard University, interned in cardiology at Bellevue Hospital, and did his psychiatric training at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute (PI).

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  • Barbara Fish, 1920-2016

    Barbara Fish was the singular child psychiatrist among the founding members of the ACNP and a lead researcher of new psychotropics in children in the NIMH Early Clinical Drug Evaluation Units program. She remained a clinician researcher in a full-time academic career, treating the more severely ill children and training many of today’s active child psychiatrists.

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  • Alfred M. Freedman, 1917-2011

    Alfred Freedman was an enthusiastic psychiatric educator and community leader willing to challenge public perceptions and prejudices. He levered the psychiatric world from its self-centered Freudian enthusiasm to caring for the less favored — the homosexual, the addicted, women, and the imprisoned.

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  • Donald M. Gallant, 1929-2020

    Donald (Don) Gallant, M.D. passed away in Memphis, Tennessee on March 11, 2020 at the age of 90 years. Don was a Life Fellow Emeritus of the ACNP and a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at the Tulane University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, LA, where he continued to carry out research and to teach medical students and residents until Hurricane Katrina destroyed his home in New Orleans. Don was the proverbial “triple threat”, a superb researcher, a compassionate, and effective clinician and an inspiring teacher and mentor. In an era of psychiatry dominated by extreme somatic therapies on the one hand and psychoanalysis on the other, Don nonetheless became one of the early “biological” psychiatrists convinced that schizophrenia and other major mental disorders had a molecular and metabolic basis and for his entire career embodying a very eclectic “medical model” of treatment intervention. Something routine today, but rare in his day.

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  • George Gardos, 1938-2019

    George Gardos, MD was one of the founders and an early President of the ACNP and a pioneer in clinical psychopharmacology. George held the ranks of Associate Clinical Professor and Associate Professor of Psychiatry (part-time) at Harvard Medical School before retiring. He also served as Chief of Psychiatry at Cushing’s Hospital and was a consultant at Boston State Hospital. George was a skilled and caring physician who had a tremendous knowledge of the benefits and hazards of first-generation antipsychotics. In addition to his clinical acumen, George Gardos was an exemplary professional colleague—amiable, intelligent, kind, sensitive, and collaborative. He was an excellent teacher—incisive and comprehensive in his presentations.

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  • Alexander H. Glassman, 1934-2011

    Dr. Alexander H. Glassman was a pioneer and recognized expert on the impact of psychiatric medication on the heart and the impact of depression on the development of heart disease.

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  • Solomon C. Goldberg, 1924-2007

    The research career and contributions of Solomon C. Goldberg, Ph.D., helped forge the field of clinical psychopharmacology clinical trials. His expertise in research methodology and statistics are reflected in the statistical techniques that he was often the first to use in clinical psychopharmacology and in the authorship of articles and chapters with biostatisticians.

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  • Frederick K. Goodwin, 1936-2020

    Fred Goodwin was a fellow member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology since the late 1960s, and early 1970s. His informed talks at the annual meeting were not to be missed. His passion for his work, and the rigor of his critical thinking, were clearly influenced by his Jesuit education. His laboratory at NIMH was stellar in the quality of its science; and, in the excellence of the young scientists that benefited from Fred’s mentorship and guidance.

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  • Louis A. Gottschalk 1916-2008

    Dr. Gottschalk made national headlines in the late 1980s when he concluded that President Ronald Reagan suffered from cognitive brain impairment as early as his first term, years before the late president was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

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  • Alan Ivan Green, 1943–2020

    Alan Ivan Green, MD, a Fellow in the ACNP, was born in Norwalk, Connecticut to Dr. Howard and Irene Wouk Green. He was the middle of three boys, all of whom became physicians like their father. Alan attended public schools in Norwalk before matriculating at Columbia University (’65), majoring in History. He then attended Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (‘69). After first year, he took a summer elective at UCSF’s Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute where he studied patients profoundly impaired by substance abuse. The experience kindled his life-long interest in substance abuse and chronic mental illness.

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  • Jack Peter Green, 1925-2007

    Jack Peter Green, M.D., Ph.D., was the founding chairperson of the Department of Pharmacology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and led the department for almost 30 years. Dr. Green was among the first to recognize the multiple subtypes of serotonin receptors in the brain.

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  • Paul Greengard, 1925-2019

    From a scientific perspective, it is difficult to overstate the impact that Paul had on our understanding of cell signaling in general, and in the nervous system in particular. Paul’s impact on our field, however, goes far beyond the papers he published. He trained hundreds of students and postdocs many of whom are now leaders in academic medicine, including deans, department chairs, institute and center directors, and innumerable leading research groups in neuroscience and other fields. Paul was unusually generative, not only in promoting the careers of members of his own laboratory, but also countless other faculty colleagues to whom he gave regular scientific and career advice. Paul spent most of his early career at the pharmaceutical company Geigy and, after brief sabbaticals at Vanderbilt University and at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1968, he joined the Yale pharmacology department in 1969 to establish his first academic laboratory at the age of 43.

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  • Roland R. Griffiths, 1946-2023

    Roland Griffiths was born in Glen Cove, New York, and grew up in the Bay Area in California. After earning a degree in psychology at Occidental College, Griffiths moved to the University of Minnesota, where he received a PhD in 1972. He then moved on to Johns Hopkins as faculty, where he remained throughout his scientific career. At Hopkins, he would go on to make groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of the reinforcing properties of psychoactive drugs and to the clinical field of psychedelic research. At Hopkins, Griffiths and his team conducted rigorous studies that deepened our understanding of addiction by characterizing and comparing subjective, behavioral, and physiological effects of licit and illicit abused drugs. Ultimately, Griffiths was a scientist whose work made a difference far beyond the laboratory. By bringing a scientific ethos to the cultural problem of psychedelic research, Griffiths and his colleagues nurtured a renaissance.

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  • Thomas Hanlon, 1919-2016

    Dr. Hanlon had a career-long association with Friends Research Institute and resigned his faculty position in 1991 to devote full time to this foundation. He participated in early-treatment evaluation studies on the effectiveness of opioid antagonists in the treatment of heroin addiction, and was involved in designing and conducting numerous psychosocial outpatient treatment trials involving adults with substance use disorders under probation and/or parole supervision.

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  • James C. Harris, 1940–2021

    James C. Harris, MD, passed away in April after 50 years at Johns Hopkins as a distinguished clinician, educator, scholar, investigator, and advocate. Jim was Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and of Pediatrics, former Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, founding director of the Developmental Neuropsychiatry Program at Hopkins and Kennedy Krieger Institute, and a beloved mentor to many of today’s leaders in pediatric psychiatry. He was also a proud member and then fellow of ACNP, and on the organization’s ethics and history committees. While psychiatry director at Kennedy Krieger, Jim championed specialty clinics in developmental neuropsychiatry, and conducted research on self-injury among patients with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome and other disorders. His many contributions to the field include serving as lead author of the DSM-5 criteria for intellectual disability. He was a passionate and inspiring advocate for people with developmental disabilities, and his many roles included serving on the President’s Committee for People with Intellectual Disabilities during the Clinton administration.

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  • John A. Harvey, 1931-2011

    John A. Harvey began his long and celebrated career as a faculty member at the University of Chicago. His research career is highlighted by many seminal scientific contributions related to the biochemistry of the brain and the development of behavioral pharmacology.

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  • Robert M. A. Hirschfeld, 1943-2023

    He was elected to the ACNP in 1989; serving as co-chair and chair of the Advocacy Committee for 11 years; Chair of the Pharmacoeconomic committee; a member of the Public Concern committee; and the Ethical Legal committee. Bob was known internationally for research on the diagnosis and treatment of depression and bipolar disorder. He developed the Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ), one of the most widely used screening assessments for bipolar disorder in the world, and translated into 19 languages. Bob completed his psychiatry residency at Stanford; and subsequently spent 18 years at the NIMH, as Chief of the Mood, Anxiety and Personality Disorders Research Branch; and was the Clinical Director of NIMH’s Depression/Awareness, Recognition, and Treatment Program. From 1989 to 2013, Dr Hirschfeld was the Harry Davis Professor, and Titus Harris Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He moved to NYC in 2015, and became a Professor at Cornell Weill, treating patients; teaching and supervising residents; and consulting with faculty and residents on difficult patients.

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  • Gerard E. Hogarty, 1935-2006

    Gerard E. Hogarty, M.S.W., is best known for developing four psychosocial treatment approaches specific to schizophrenia.

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  • John W. Holaday, 1945-2019

    John W. Holaday, Ph.D. was Chairman, Founder, and CEO of DisposeRx Inc. John was an American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Fellow, and was co-founder of QRxPharma Limited, Medicis Pharmaceutical, EntreMed, and MaxCyte and held various positions as CEO and Chairman. John served on the Board of Directors of Exosis, Pixspan, and CytImmune Sciences. John received numerous honors and awards for his development of biotechnology, including being selected for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2006 Hall of Fame. He held over 90 patents and published over 200 scientific articles and five books.

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  • Stephen G. Holtzman, 1944 - 2011

    Steve Holzman was a pioneer in the use of drug discrimination procedures to investigate the pharmacological properties of opioids. His scientific publications in the 1970s-1990s contributed significantly to the widespread adoption of drug discrimination methodology to study drug-receptor interactions in behaving rodents and non-human primates; this model continues to play a key role in the preclinical development of new drugs for use in psychiatry and drug and alcohol dependence.

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  • Daniel W. Hommer, 1950-2014

    Dr. Daniel Hommer, 64, chief of NIAAA’s section on brain electrophysiology and imaging, died on Jan. 2. He had served as head of the section since 1992, his second tenure working at NIH. Hammer was born in Easton, Pa., and received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

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  • Oleh Hornykiewicz, 1926–2020

    Dr. Oleh Hornykiewicz (1926–2020) was one of a rare handful of scientists familiar with the deep anatomical pockets of the human brain and capable of dissecting them out individually. This special ability made it possible for him to uncover the neurochemical abnormalities of various regions of the brain in Parkinson’s disease. Oleh entered the University of Vienna to study medicine and, on graduation, joined the Pharmacology Institute, combining clinical work with research into Wilson’s disease. From 1956 to 1958, he took a break from Vienna at Oxford University in England where his attention became focused on dopamine, a substance just becoming recognized as potentially important to brain function.

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  • Turan M. Itil, 1924-2014

    Turan Itil was born in Bursa, Turkey on August 12, 1924. He received the M.D. degree from Istanbul University in 1948 and moved to the University of Tübingen in Germany for training in neurology. In 1953 he joined the faculty at the University of Erlangen with EEG and psychopharmacology the center of his research. After a decade in St. Louis, he moved to New York Medical College and established the HZI Research Center Laboratory in Tarrytown New York. Oct 2, 2014

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  • Leslie L. Iversen, 1937–2020

    Leslie Iversen, Ph.D. led an outstanding generation of UK neuropharmacologists. He excelled in every domain; leading intra-mural research of the Medical Research Council; heading a UK drug discovery unit for Merck; providing academic scholarship (at Oxford University) and consulting for Biotech and government, chairing the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs Committee with characteristic calm and intellectual distinction.

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  • David M. Jacobowitz, 1931-2018

    Dr. Jacobowitz is best known as a tremendously talented neuroanatomist and technical  innovator. His laboratory produced complete maps of 13 neuronal systems—more than have come out of any other single laboratory in the world, including, for example,  catecholamine/acetylcholinesterase, alpha-melanocytestimulating hormone, corticotropin-releasing hormone, calcitonin gene-related peptide, galanin, atrial natriuretic factor, growth hormone-releasing hormone, bovine pancreatic polypeptide, motilin, melanin-concentrating hormone, and peptide receptor binding sites (CRF, CFRP, and galanin angiotensin II).

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  • Murray E. Jarvik, 1923-2008

    Murray Jarvik was a founding member of ACNP. Murray was best known for his research on nicotine addiction and as a co-inventor of the nicotine patch to help people stop smoking.

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  • Edward G. Jones, 1939-2011

    Ted Jones distinguished himself in many areas of neuroscience. He was unquestionably the world authority on the Thalamus, producing a remarkable two-volume book filled with his own photomicrographs and illustrations. He was a pioneer of the study of cortico-cortical circuitry and the subpopulations of neurons that comprise local cortical circuits and of neuroplasticity in the cortex and thalamus that helped define the field.

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  • Lewis Judd, 1930–2018

    Judd was an expert in biological psychiatry and clinical psychopharmacology—and a forceful advocate for pushing psychiatry to its present as a data-driven, hard-charging neuroscience-based scientifically robust field. He was an early and vocal leader of the idea that mental disorders, such as depression, were the result of neurological and biological dysfunction, and argued that they could be effectively treated with appropriate psychopharmaceuticals. He was an avid advocate for rigorous clinical training.

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  • Harry L. June, 1957-2014

    Dr. Harry L. June, a Member of the College since 2004, succumbed to cancer on June 7, 2014. A native of South Carolina, Dr. June received his Ph.D. from Howard University in 1990 under Dr. Michael Lewis. Following a postdoctoral fellowship in human psychopharmacology at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. June held a dual appointment as assistant professor in the Psychology Department at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis (IUPUI) and the Medical Neurobiology Program at Indiana University School of Medicine.

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  • Samuel C. Kaim, 1911-2012

    As the first director of an Alcoholism Service in the US Department of Veterans Affairs, Sam Kaim helped to compel armed forces personnel to recognize the significance of opioid dependence in Vietnam, leading a charge for expansion of his office in 1970 to become the Alcohol and Drug Dependence Services.

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  • Martin Katz, 1927-2017

    Dr. Katz’s contributions are crowned with the publication of two monographs in the last three years of his life in which he shows that deconstructing the  diagnosis of depression, uncovering its dimensional structure and developing a methodology that allows the measuring of drug-induced changes on the independent dimensions that comprise it could open up a new perspective in the clinical development of drugs for the treatment of depression (Katz, 2013, 2016).

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  • Seymour Kaufman, 1924-2009

    In Dr. Kaufman’s five years at New York University, he matured into an outstanding enzymologist and biochemist and made his first major contribution to biochemistry, the discovery of substrate phosphorylation in the conversion of a-ketoglutarate to succinate in the tricarboxylic acid cycle.

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  • Ann E. Kelley, 1954-2007

    Dr. Ann E. Kelley led an eminent career in which she made groundbreaking contributions to neuropsychopharmacology. Importantly, Dr. Kelley was a pioneer for women in science and launched the successful careers of a generation of neuroscientists through her mentoring and teaching.

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  • Eva King Killam, 1920-2006

    Eva King Killam, Ph.D., was a founding member of the ACNP and the first female President. Her research focused on the effects and actions of drugs on the brainstem and reticular formation.

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  • Herbert D. Kleber, 1934-2018

    Dr. Herbert D. Kleber was a pioneer of addiction research and treatment. At the time of his death, Dr. Kleber was Professor of Psychiatry and Emeritus Director of the Division on Substance Use Disorders, which he founded, at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. This represented the culmination of his 50-year career, during which he and his colleagues probed the pathology of addiction, and developed treatments to mitigate withdrawal and promote recovery.

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  • Donald F. Klein, 1928-2019

    Donald Klein, MD, who played a transformative role in psychiatry’s evolution as a scientific discipline and longstanding member of the ACNP died August 8, 2019. Don served in many leadership positions including as president and council member of the ACNP. At the time of his death, he was Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Research Professor at New York University Langone Medical Center.

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  • C. James Klett, 1926-2020

    C. James “Jim” Klett, Ph.D., was a Fellow Emeritus for ACNP and a giant among the first generation of psychopharmacologists. Many of us know him best by the company he kept: Leo Hollister, Jonathan Cole, John Overall, Gerry Klerman, just to name a few. Jim’s passion was in statistics and clinical trials methodology. During his 25 years as Chief of the VA’s Central Neuropsychopharmacology Research Lab, he conducted multicenter clinical trials that made a difference in patient care. His study with Sam Kaim on alcohol withdrawal comparing four drugs, one still in use, was picked as one of NIAAA’s seminal articles on alcohol research.

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  • B. Kenneth Koe, 1925-2015

    Dr. Koe worked with Albert Weissman in the 1960s, publishing two of the most seminal discoveries in the formative years of neuropharmacology. First, they developed alpha-methyl-para-tyrosine, a drug that inhibits brain catecholamine synthesis, and used it to show how amphetamine produced its psychostimulant effects by facilitating the release of catecholamines in the brain. The following year, Ken’s group introduced para-chlorophenylalanine as an inhibitor of serotonin synthesis and showed how it could be used to deplete selectively serotonin in brain. These two drugs have been used by dozens of neuropharmacology laboratories for understanding the critical role of biogenic amines in psychopharmacology and behavioral health.

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  • Irwin Kopin, 1929-2017

    Irwin J Kopin was a giant in catecholamine research. His groundbreaking findings on the characteristics and metabolism of catecholamines provided the backbone for major advances in neurological and psychiatric disorders.

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  • Conan Kornetsky, 1926-2018

    Dr. Conan Kornetsky, a founding member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, died of complications of Alzheimer’s Disease at age 92, on 21 December 2018. His long and distinguished career in psychopharmacology began in 1949 almost by chance. As a psychology graduate student at the University of Kentucky, he accepted a job at the United States Public Health Service Hospital (USPHS) in Lexington, Kentucky administering IQ tests in exchange for room and board. The job brought him into contact with some of the pioneering researchers at the Addiction Research Center.

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  • Stephen Hugh Koslow, 1940-2021

    Stephen H. Koslow, ACNP Fellow Emeritus and member since 1977, unexpectedly lost his life on April 23, 2021. He had a most illustrious career and leaves an unusually large number of close colleagues and friends with whom he maintained close connections. Steve or “Koz” as he was known to many of us received his undergraduate education at Columbia University (BS) and his Ph.D in Pharmacology from the University of Chicago. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, he joined the intramural research program in the Laboratory of Preclinical Pharmacology and subsequently became the chief of the Unit of Neurobiological Applications of Mass Spectrometry in that group. This program based at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital was a hotbed of neuroscience and biological psychiatry research. It was there that Steve began his work as the principal investigator of the Clinical Research Branch Collaborative Program on the Psychobiology of Depression, a 6 center study, a 10-year program.Steve had the biggest heart. Behind a thin veneer of a dry sense of humor and occasional sarcasm, he was the MOST loyal of friends, through good times and bad.

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  • Mary Jeanne Kreek, 1937-2021

    Mary Jeanne, a Fellow Emeritus in the ACNP, knew from an early age that she wanted to become a physician and scientist, but her first part time job was as a professional dancer. From the mid 1960’s to her death this year, Mary Jeanne never ceased to improve and develop methadone treatment. She was the key defender of this treatment that was proven to save lives and allow rehabilitation of heroin addicts. Throughout her career Mary Jeanne led the movement toward studying the genetic basis of opioid addiction. Her work was recognized by numerous awards including the top award from the College on Problems of Dependence, the Eddy Award in 1999. She also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse in 2014.

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  • Roland Kuhn, 1912-2005

    Roland Kuhn, M.D., the discoverer in 1956 of the antidepressant effect of imipramine, died October 10, 2005, at the age of 93.

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  • Albert Kurland

    Dr. Albert Kurland was the founder of the Maryland State Psychiatric Research Center and an eternal optimist who worked energetically and never said an unkind word about anyone.

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  • Louis Lemberger, 1937-2016

    His productivity before and during his time at the National Institute of Mental Health was a springboard from which he ascended to prominence in the pharmaceutical industry and as an International leader in the fields of pharmacology, clinical pharmacology, experimental biology, and drug development. In his role as a clinical pharmacologist, he was the first to administer a number of important drugs, including Prozac (antidepressant) and pergolide (anti-parkinsonian).

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  • Andrew C. Leon, 1951-2012

    Andy Leon spent years training new investigators and was generous with his time and wise advice. His intellectual powers were impressive. Yet, when he helped young investigators who were struggling to design a study or interpret statistics, he would gently correct them, never criticizing or humiliating them. He would say, “Well, I have a slightly different take on that and you may want to consider approaching the problem this way”.

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  • Ting-Kai Li, 1934-2018

    Dr. Li was a pioneer and forceful advocate for the role of genetics in alcoholism. Dr. Li was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Indiana University and had been an Associate Dean for Research at the IU School of Medicine and Distinguished Professor since 1985. Dr. Li used artificial selection to create an animal model of voluntary alcohol consumption, the alcohol preferring rat. This model became the basis for studies on alcoholism worldwide, directly led to the discovery of physiological processes and genes influencing risk, and contributed to the development of new medications.

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  • Roger P. Maickel, 1933-2006

    Roger P. Maickel, Ph.D., served 10 years as a member of the Indiana Controlled Substance Advisory Committee, and co-authored numerous scientific papers and contributed to numerous textbooks.

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  • Robert T. Malison, 1959–2020

    Robert T. Malison, M.D., professor of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and a long-standing member of the ACNP died unexpectedly at the age of 60 on Saturday, July 25, 2020. Bob, an avid outdoorsman, cellist and tennis player, passed away peacefully in his bed after an acute cardiac event. At the time of his death, Bob was director of the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit of the Abraham Ribicoff Research Facilities of the Connecticut Mental Health Center. He was leader of the Neuroscience Research Training Program (T32 grant), the neuroscience research track of the Yale Psychiatry Residency. He also led the Integrated Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Training (IMPORT) in Psychiatry (NIMH R25), and an addiction training grant based in Thailand. At the same time, he was principal investigator on two independent project grants (RO1s). Bob was a polymath translational neuroscientist and pioneer in addiction research. Bob was the recipient of a number of national and international honors. However, it is likely that his most treasured honor was being voted “Teacher of the Year” by the Yale Psychiatry Residents Association in 2010.

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  • Athina Markou, 1961-2016

    ‘Special’ is the word that comes most readily to mind when remembering Athina Markou. Our field lost a special person when Professor Athina Markou passed away on 18 May 2016, at home with her husband and Greek relatives, after a 4-year battle with cancer. In a life well lived, albeit too short, Athina accomplished a great deal, most visably in her Neuropsychopharmacology career. But Athina was much more than a scientist: there was Athina the Greek citizen; Athina the adventurer; Athina the skier; Athina the balletomane; and Athina the friend/mentor/wife.

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  • Billy R. Martin 1943-2008

    Billy R. Martin was universally recognized as one of the top pharmacologists in the field of cannabinoid research and added significantly to our knowledge of the mechanism of action of nicotine and other drugs of abuse.

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  • Joe L. Martinez, Jr., 1944–2020

    Joe L. Martinez, Jr., Ph.D. was an academic scientist in the areas of neuropharmacology and psychobiology, and a champion of diversity in science. Joe was retired from a long and notable career with his longest tenure at the University of Texas, San Antonio (UTSA), where he was the Ewing Halsell Distinguished Chair in psychology and the founder and Director of the Cajal Neuroscience Research Center, currently known as the UTSA Neurosciences Institute. Joe was an ACNP emeritus member. His research focused on the neurochemical and neurophysiological basis of learning and memory.

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  • Robert McCarley, 1937-2017

    As a clinically trained and board-certified psychiatrist, Robert W McCarley was interested in neuroscience related to schizophrenia, particularly as new  technologies made it possible to examine brain physiology and structure in psychiatric populations.

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  • Bruce McEwen, 1938-2020

    Bruce S. McEwen, Ph.D. was the Alfred E. Mirsky Professor and Head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology.  He was elected to the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) in 1998 and became the inaugural winner of the Neuropsychopharmacology Editors’ Award for a Review (NEAR) in 2017.  Dr. McEwen was internationally renowned for his extraordinary research documenting the profound role of stress and stress hormones, specifically the cortisol-like corticosterone steroid in rodents, on both brain structure and function.  For over five decades, Dr. McEwen continued to conduct outstanding laboratory-based research, primarily in rodent models, to increasingly elucidate the details of how stress, stress hormones, and sex hormones impact specific aspects of brain function, with focus on the hippocampus.

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  • William T. McKinney, Jr., MD 1937–2022

    William T. McKinney, Jr., MD, became a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology in 1979. He was a Fellow Emeritus of ACNP. Bill McKinney’s career, efforts in research, teaching, writing, and advocating for a comprehensive biological model were extraordinary, as was the man. Shortly after Bill McKinney joined the faculty of the Psychiatry Department at University of Wisconsin in 1969, he was appointed to the scientific staff of the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center by then director, Dr. Harry F. Harlow. A comparative psychologist, Harlow had already received international acclaim for his pioneering studies of social-emotional development in rhesus monkeys. Dr. McKinney’s interests were similarly informed by comparisons across species. Harlow’s research had long been influenced by John Bowlby’s emerging ideas about attachment, in large part the product of an extended professional friendship between Harlow and Bowlby. Given McKinney’s impeccable academic credentials, Baylor (BA), Vanderbilt (MD), psychiatry residency at the University of North Carolina (2 years), and Stanford (1 year, so he could work with David Hamburg, MD, and Jane Goodall, PhD), and his keen interest in developing animal models of depression [1], Bill McKinney soon became an integral part of the research team, focusing on early social relationships among rhesus monkeys growing up in Harlow’s lab.

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  • Douglas M. McNair

    Douglas M. McNair, Ph.D., and his colleagues empirically confirmed the existence of six mood or affective state factors: Tension-Anxiety, Depression-Dejection, Anger- Hostility, Vigor-Activity, Fatigue-Inertia, and Confusion-Bewilderment.

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  • Nancy Kishlar Mello, 1935-2014

    On November 25, 2013, the neuroscience community lost a wonderful friend and colleague when Dr. Nancy Kishlar Mello died. On both personal and professional levels, Nancy enriched our lives and contributed directly and indirectly to our careers.

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  • Jack Harold Mendelson, 1929-2007

    Jack Harold Mendelson, M.D., Ph.D., devoted his research career to studying the behavioral and biological aspects of alcoholism and drug abuse. He served as chief of the National Center for Prevention and Control of Alcoholism from 1966-1970, the first federal program to focus on alcoholism.

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  • Sidney Merlis, 1925-2009

    Dr. Merlis’ research center was one of the first 15 awardees when Jonathan Cole and the Psychopharmacology Service Center established the Early Clinical Drug Evaluation program in 1960. He was a founding member of both the ACNP (1961) and the CINP (1962).

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  • Peter J. Morgane, 1927-2010

    Peter J. Morgane was a Neuroscientist and Neuropharmacologist. His interest in feeding behavior and the effects of nutrition on brain development were key aspects of his research throughout his career.

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  • Claude de Montigny, 1945-2012

    On October 19, 2012, our Field lost a brilliant mind. Claude de Montigny passed away peacefully during his sleep in his family home in Outremont, Québec. Claude was only 67 years old. The unexpected news that friends and close colleagues received the very next day threw an intense wave of sadness in our hearts.

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  • Norton Herbert Neff, 1935-2022

    Norton Herbert Neff, ACNP Fellow Emeritus, died on September 5th, 2022, at the age of 87. He was elected to ACNP Membership in 1977 and became a Lifetime Fellow in 2003. Over his 42-year career, Norton made groundbreaking contributions to the field of neuropsychopharmacology. His pioneering work expanded our knowledge of brain biogenic amine systems and helped to establish the neurochemical bases of neuropsychiatric disorders and drug treatments as we know them today. By developing the techniques to measure monoamine metabolism, he contributed critically to our modern understanding of dopamine synthesis and turnover, demonstrating light- stimulated activity of tyrosine hydroxylase in the retina, and providing the first evidence for the regulation of aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase, an enzyme involved in the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease. His characterization of monoamine oxidases demonstrated their role in biogenic amine metabolism and provided the foundational evidence for the use of MAO inhibitors as antidepressants. In other early work, he described the presence of angiotensin-converting enzyme in the brain, its role in regulating neuropeptide signaling and investigated GABAB, muscarinic, and adenosine receptor signaling.

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  • Jeffrey Nye, 1959-2017

    Jeffrey Scott Nye was a molecular pharmacologist, pediatric neurologist, and pharmaceutical innovator. Jeff made countless contributions in service to so many over the course of his distinguished career. Whether at the bench, the bedside, or the boardroom, Jeff exhibited a stunning intellect, personable manner, and business acumen that were as much innate as learned.

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  • John E. Overall, 1929-2016

    Professor Emeritus of Psychology, John E Overall passed away on 27 March 2016 at the age of 86. Throughout his eminent career, Dr Overall served as a consultant or advisory board member at the ACNP, the CINP, the ECDEU, the VA, the FDA, the NIMH, and the WHO. He is best known for his leading role in the development of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) with Donald R. Gorham, which has made a lasting impact on clinical research.

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  • Ghanshyam Narayan Pandey, 1937–2022

    Dr. Pandey was a Fellow Emeritus and was accepted into ACNP membership in 1981. Dr. Pandey completed his early education and his PhD in India followed by a post doc at the University of Pennsylvania. Over the last several years, Dr. Pandey focused his research on the neurobiological correlates of suicide. This primarily involved postmortem studies of brain tissue from patients who died of suicide obtained from brain banks around the world. His laboratory was best known for his work on the pharmacological and molecular aspects of monoamine neurotransmitter systems like serotonin and norepinephrine. The Pandey lab was among finest in the country with respect to preclinical studies into serotonergic and related signaling mechanisms and its role in the neurobiological underpinnings of depression and suicide. His research was consistently funded by the NIH, and he served as a member and chairman of several NIH Review Committees over the years. ‘Shyam’, as he was popularly known to his colleagues, received numerous awards from national and international organizations and scientific societies.

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  • Jaak Panksepp, 1942-2017

    Jaak was a pioneer in the area of affective neuroscience at a time when many researchers discounted that animal emotions could be studied scientifically (or even existed).  From his first publication in 1967, he published over 250 peer-reviewed articles, many of which received hundreds or thousands of citations.

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  • Loren Parsons, 1964-2016

    Larry’s approach to science was admirable. His data were derived from meticulous methodologies, his results were interpreted with insight, and his publications were carefully composed to convey meanings that were simultaneously conservative and progressive. His breadth and depth of knowledge, coupled with fast intellectual processing, enabled him to interact with myriad collaborators and trainees.

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  • Eugene S. Paykel, 1934-2023

    Eugene Stern Paykel was born on 9 September 1934 in Auckland, New Zealand. His research work focused on affective disorders in which he made significant and far-reaching contributions to the study of both causes and treatments of depression, spanning the fields of epidemiology, community psychiatry, psychological therapy, and psychopharmacology. As a reflection of his research interest in psychopharmacology, he served as President of The British Association for Psychopharmacology (BAP) and The Collegium Internationale Neuropsychopharmacologicum (CINP), as well as being accepted into ACNP membership in 1981, eventually becoming Fellow Emeritus. He served on the Medical Research Council Neuroscience and Mental Health Board in the 1990s, was Vice-President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1987-1998, and received their highest honor by being elected as an Honorary Fellow in 2001. He also edited the prestigious journal Psychological Medicine from 1994 to 2006.

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  • Candace Pert, 1946-2013

    Candace Pert passed away in Potomac, Maryland on September 12, 2013 at the age of 67. She was born in New York City in 1946 and received a B.S. in Biology from Bryn Mawr College in 1970 followed by graduate studies in pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine under Dr. Solomon Snyder.

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  • Alfred Pletscher, 1916-2006

    Alfred Pletcher, M.D., Ph.D., was instrumental in introducing the first monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitor, the benzodiazepines, and levodopa into medicine. The rise of biological therapies for psychiatric disorders and the introduction of effective treatment for Parkinson’s disease will always be linked to his name.

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  • Sachindra Nath Pradhan

    Sachindra Nath Pradhan, M.D., Ph.D. was an accomplished scientist, a patriotic Indian and a visionary. His vision culminated in creation of the Center for Neurosciences at the Calcutta University. It represents the first such center in Eastern India and one of very few in India.

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  • Maressa H. Orzack, 1927-2011

    Originally trained as an experimental psychologist, Maressa Hecht Orzack studied with three of the founders of what is now called radical behaviorism, B.F. Skinner, W.N. Schoenfeld, and Fred S. Keller.

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  • Frederic M. Quitkin, 1937-2005

    Frederic M. Quitkin, 1937-2005

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  • Oakley Ray, 1931-2007

    Oakley Ray, Ph.D., had the longest tenure of any individual in any elected ACNP position. It is no exaggeration to say that he did the most from an organizational point of view of any of its members to make the ACNP the preeminent scientific society in its field.

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  • Richard Resnick, 1931-2018

    Dr. Resnick was pioneering researcher in addiction medicine. He was a psychiatrist, substance abuse researcher and long-standing ACNP member. Dick, as he was known, born in New York City, graduated from City College of New York and received his M.D. from New York Medical College in 1958. He completed post-graduate training in psychiatry at Albert Einstein Medical College and Hillside Hospital where he worked with Max Fink utilizing pharmaco-EEG for drug development.

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  • Lee N. Robins, 1922-2009

    The research of Lee N. Robins, Ph.D, placed her at the forefront of psychiatric epidemiology research, with a career spanning five decades. Her early work focused on the effect of psychiatric disorders occurring in childhood on later adult life, spawning her seminal work, “Deviant Children Grown Up”, published by Williams & Wilkins in 1966.

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  • Donald S. Robinson, 1928-2022

    Donald S Robinson MD, ACNP Fellow Emeritus, who passed away peacefully surrounded by family on September 26, 2022 at the age of 94 will be remembered not only for his very special personal characteristics and multiple contributions to the field of psychopharmacology as well as the ACNP, but also for his truly seminal role as one of the founding fathers of the emerging field of psychopharmacology. During his fellowship at the NIH Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in the late 60’s he became interested in clinical pharmacology and embarked on a long and productive research career in academia and industry. Don as one of the true fathers of the field of psychopharmacology that is central to the mission of the ACNP: bridging basic mechanistic studies of drug action to fully optimize the use of existing drugs as well as to forge a path to even better ones. In pursuit of these goals, he became a role model for many of us moving from academic careers to leadership positions in industry in order to discover and develop new medicines to treat a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders.

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  • Sir Martin Roth, 1917-2006

    Sir Martin Roth, M.D., played a role in the differentiation and classification of mental diseases, mainly those associated with old age.

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  • Gian Carlo Salmoiraghi, 1924–2020

    Gian Carlo “Nino” Salmoiraghi, D.Sc., MD, Ph.D., a Fellow Emeritus in the ACNP, had a long and distinguished career in medicine and science. He earned his medical degree from the University of Rome in 1948 and a Doctorate of Philosophy from McGill University in Physiology in 1959.  His was a cutting-edge vision of bringing together a broad spectrum of scientific disciplines to focus on mental disorders at a time when the idea of a biological basis for a range of abnormal human behaviors was gaining traction and even the discipline of “neuroscience” was in its infancy. He was an outstanding mentor and role model. Many
    who served under him absorbed his talent for administration and became successful program leaders, institute directors, and department chairs in their own right. He will always be remembered for helping to pioneer the fields of neuroscience and neuropsychopharmacology and for his warmth, wit, and wise counsel.

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  • Merton Sandler, 1926-2014

    Prof. Merton Sandler, Fellow Emeritus of the ACNP, was one of the great founders of the field of Biochemical Psychopharmacology. As he noticed in an interview with Prof. D. Healy “I didn’t even realize I was a psychopharmacologist until many years after I had become one”.

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  • Saul M. Schanberg

    Dr. Schanberg is globally recognized for his ground-breaking research on the importance of touch in normal growth and development, finding that specific types of touch led to better health and shorter hospital stays for premature infants. His discoveries changed the way hospitals and clinics all over the world care for premature infants.

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  • Joseph J. Schildkraut, 1934-2006

    Joseph J. Schildkraut, M.D., is known for his work from the early- to mid-1960s that set the stage for psychopharmacological research in affective disorders for the years since.

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  • Joseph Schoolar, 1928-2013

    Dr. Joseph Clayton Schoolar, of Houston, passed away on May 4, 2013, at the age of 85. He is survived by his wife of 52 years Betty Schoolar, by his brother Larry Schoolar, and many beloved family members including his five children Jonathan, Cynthia, Geoffrey, Catherine, and Adrian. Dr. Schoolar was Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology and Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine.

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  • Mogens Schou, 1918-2005

    Mogens Schou, M.D., had a long and distinguished career dedicated to research on therapeutic uses of lithium rooted in his deep concern for all patients with mood disorders.

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  • Charles R. Schuster, 1930-2011

    As Director of the National Institute for Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Schuster appreciated the complexities of the problems and how effective administration could help make the problems easier to grasp and deal with; the staff of the Institute could sense his enjoyment. He avoided many pitfalls, and never came to think that he would solve the public’s problem. Throughout the rest of his career, he often remarked on the perspective and excitement that the Directorship afforded him.

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  • Philip Seeman, 1934-2021

    Professor Philip Seeman MD, PhD, DSc FRSC, Order of Canada, an ACNP Member Emeritus, was a towering icon of neuropsychiatric research. Inspired by his beloved wife and psychiatrist Dr. Mary V. Seeman, Philip became intrigued with schizophrenia pathophysiology. With the advent of effective antipsychotic drugs (e.g., haloperidol), he surmised that their targets could guide the path towards illuminating the pathology of schizophrenia. Philip Seeman’s intangible traits – generosity, kindness, mentorship, friendship, equanimity, and humor – live on in the memories of those fortunate enough to have known him as a friend, a trainee, a colleague, an advisor, a collaborator.

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  • Lewis S. Seiden, 1934-2007

    Lewis S. Seiden, Ph.D., is known as a pioneer in the fields of behavioral pharmacology and amphetamine neurotoxicology. He was a Professor Emeritus of pharmacological and physiological sciences and of psychiatry at the University of Chicago at the time of his death.

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  • David Segal, 1942-2005

    David Segal, Ph.D., was nationally and internationally known as an expert and a creative scientific leader in the study of the long-term effects of drugs on behavior and the neurochemical mechanisms of adaptation.

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  • Larry Seidman, 1950-2017

    Lawrence J. Seidman’s research career began with studies of the neuropsychology of temporal lobe epilepsy. He joined the faculty of Boston University Medical Center in 1980, and then moved to the Harvard Medical School (HMS) in 1985, where he continued for the rest of his career.  Larry’s research and leadership contributions earned him close friendships with many like-minded scholars throughout the world, and many national and international laurels.

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  • Jerry Sepinwall, 1940-1998

    Jerry Sepinwall died on August 5, 1998, at the age of 57 of a recurrent episode of cancer.  He was a respected member of ACNP and a personal friend and colleague with whom I had the pleasure to collaborate in the Department of Pharmacology at Hoffmann La Roche for 14 years.

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  • Toni S. Shippenberg, 1955-2012

    Toni Shippenberg’s contributions to the fields of Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology over the years were outstanding and are reflected by the high esteem she was held in by colleagues within NIH as well as throughout the United States and abroad.

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  • Larry J. Siever, 1947-2021

    Larry J. Siever, MD, a pioneer in the study of personality disorders and a longtime leader in the Mount Sinai Department of Psychiatry and James J Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC), has passed away after a long illness. Larry’s work provided the scaffolding for a new way of thinking about personality disorders and has been internationally recognized for decades. His work led to the reconceptualization of personality disorders and, arguably, the elimination of a distinction between Axis I and Axis II in DSM-5. He published more than 350 peer-reviewed papers in work acknowledged by numerous awards, including being named “Presidential Scholar” and an award “In recognition of distinguished and pioneering contributions to the study of personality disorders” at the International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders in 2011. Though research, education and mentorship were ever at the core of Larry’s life’s work, there is much else to acknowledge.

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  • Albert Sjoerdsma, 1924 - 2014

    Dr. Sjoerdsma’s pioneering work with biogenic amines, initially in collaboration with the laboratories of Dr. Sidney Udenfriend, led to the elucidation of serotonin’s metabolic degradation to 5-HIAA, discovery of the malignant carcinoid syndrome, elaboration of the clinical and biochemical manifestations of pheochromocytoma, and identification of the mechanism of action of monoamine oxidase inhibitors in humans.

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  • Robert Bruce Sloane, 1923-2007

    Robert Bruce Sloane, M.D., published widely including papers with Stanley Cobb, Ted Sourkes (which was one of the earliest papers on catecholamines and mental illness), and Murray Saffrin on steroids all in the late 50s.

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  • Robert Spitzer, 1932-2015

    Perhaps Spitzer’s most famous achievement was the removal of the diagnosis of homosexuality as a mental disorder. In the early 70’s after meeting with gay-rights advocates, he examined the evidence for homosexuality as a pathologic condition. The issue was extremely contentious, but, in 1973, ultimately he concluded that there was no evidence to support same-sexual orientation as a pathologic condition.

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  • Barbara H. Stanley, 1949-2023

    Barbara H. Stanley was an ACNP Fellow and accepted into membership in 2014. At the time of her passing, Dr. Stanley, was Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at Columbia University and Director of Suicide Prevention Training for the New York State Office of Mental Health and a Research Scientist at New York State Psychiatric Institute. Barbara’s packet of rating scales went on to be adapted into a comprehensive psychological autopsy that is still used by our Columbia/NYSPI group to clinically phenotype all cases and controls in our brain collection. Barbara transitioned from a major interest in ethics of research in psychiatric patients to the field of suicide research. She pioneered the use of ecological momentary assessment to study suicidal ideation and its relationships to mechanisms employed by patients to cope with stress and suicidal ideation. Barbara was as great a clinician as she was a researcher. She teamed up with Greg Brown, Director of the Penn Center for the Prevention of Suicide at the University of Pennsylvania, to create the Stanley-Brown Safety Planning Intervention. Dr. Stanley wrote more than 200 papers. She was a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the ACNP. At the time of her death, she was president of the International Academy for Suicide Research. She had been the Editor in Chief of the Archives of Suicide Research for many years, and served on boards and committees of many professional organizations.

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  • Larry Stein, 1931-2019

    Dr. Larry Stein was a Professor Emeritus of Pharmacology, University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine, and American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) Fellow Emeritus. Dr. Stein was accepted for ACNP membership in 1963. His research career spanned over five decades. His pioneering research places him among the most prominent and seminal researchers at the origins of our field of neuropsychopharmacology. He was a brilliant pharmacologist, dynamic leader and mentor, and wonderful, well-loved human being.

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  • Jon M. Stolk

    Jon M. Stolk, Ph.D, M.D., focused his research on the characteristics of the synthetic enzymes in the norepinephrine and epinephrine pathways.

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  • Ellen Stover, 1950-2014

    It is unusual for an obituary to be written by more than one author, much less three. The fact that the three of us wished to honor and celebrate Ellen Stover in the ACNP journal is a testimony to the impact she has had on the field. Ellen personified the consummate NIH program officer. She tirelessly served her constituency—those whose grants were in “her” portfolio and advocated for them with NIMH leadership.

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  • A. Arthur Sugerman, 1929-2007

    A. Arthur Sugerman, M.D., published widely on the use of antipsychotic drugs in the treatment of schizophrenia as well as on EEG studies and addiction.

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  • Fridolin Sulser, 1927-2016

    Fridolin championed the theory that acute effects of tricylic antidepressant drugs were not directly responsible for thier therapeutic action. His research on the mechanism for the delayed effect of antidepressants was influenced by his friend and Nobel Prize winner, Earl Sutherland, who suggested that he should look beyond the synapse at the norepinephrine/adenylate cyclase signal transduction cascade. This strategy led to the discovery that antidepressant treatments (tricyclics, MAO inhibitors, and ECT), given on a clinically relevant time basis, reduced the responsiveness of the B-adrenoceptor-coupled adenylate cyclase system to norepinephrine in limbic and cortical structures of the rat brain.

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  • Torgny Svensson, 1945–2020

    Torgny Svensson, M.D., Ph.D. was professor of Pharmacology at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. He was an internationally recognized psychopharmacologist and neurophysiologist who focused on monoamine systems. Torgny’s work shed light on the mechanism of action of antipsychotic and antidepressant medications and it suggested novel mechanisms to enhance treatment efficacy. Torgny was an active and devoted ACNP member. Over four decades, he enjoyed connecting with his wide international network of friends and colleagues at our meeting.

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  • John A. Sweeney, 1952-2023

    Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, John Sweeney completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Cincinnati and Tel Aviv University and received his doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Syracuse University. He completed postgraduate training at the Payne Whitney Clinic at New York Hospital and Cornell University Medical College in New York. He was elected as a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology in 2008 and went on to earn the distinction of becoming a Fellow and, eventually, a Fellow Emeritus in 2015. His advisory roles on several National Institutes of Mental Health scientific boards, editorial board memberships, and consultancy engagements with industry highlights his multifaceted expertise and influence within the field. John’s scholarly legacy is nearly impossible to describe, with more than 1000 articles, reviews, and book chapters, including over 500 peer-reviewed articles. His research intentionally crossed the boundaries of psychiatric disorders, including autism, Fragile X, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and anxiety, while also focusing on understanding neurodevelopment across the entire spectrum of life.

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  • Stephen I. Szára, 1923-2021

    Stephen Szára, a Hungarian psychiatrist and chemist, often considered the “father of DMT” (N-N-Dimethyltryptamine), died on August 1, 2021. In the nineteen-fifties he became interested in the concept of model psychoses and the role of psychedelics in psychotherapy, and was the first to study the psychotropic effects of DMT, an alternative molecule he synthesized after Sandoz had declined to send LSD behind the iron curtain (arguing that such a powerful psychotropic drug might be dangerous if used unscrupulously). Branch in the Division of Preclinical Research. Dr. Szára was an Emeritus Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and Collegium Internationale NeuroPsychopharmacologicum. He was also recipient of the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration Administrator’s Meritorious Achievement Award and the Kovats Medal of Freedom from the American Hungarian Federation.

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  • John Tallman, 1947-2006

    John Tallman, Ph.D., was a pioneer of the properties of the GABA neurotransmitter receptor using pharmacological and molecular biological probes. In 2001, he became the president and CEO of Helicon Therapeutics, Inc., a biotech company with a focus on functional genomics of memory and therapeutics to enhance memory consolidation.

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  • Maharaj K. Ticku, 1948-2007

    In addition to his research contributions to molecular neurobiology, Dr. Raj Ticku was a critical leader at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He was an excellent teacher and played a key role in the recruitment of new talent to the Center and led many faculty and chair searches.

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  • Gary Tollefson 1951-2009

    During his academic career, Dr. Tollefson’s work focused primarily on antidepressants and anxiolytic drugs. He contributed important research on interaction of antidepressants and other psychotropic drugs with muscarinic-cholinergic receptors, predicting their propensity to produce anticholinergic side effects.

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  • William J. Turner, 1907-2006

    William J. Turner, M.D., was a first-generation psychiatric researcher, being almost alone in focusing on the biological cause of mental illness.

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  • Eberhard H. Uhlenhuth, 1927-2016

    Eberhard H. Uhlenhuth, M.D., was a leading investigator in the psychopharmacology of anxiety disorders and is well known globally as an expert in the psychopharmacology of benzodiazepines. His research was elegant in its aims and design, and his nearly 200 published papers were clear, incisive, and highly influential. His approach to understanding the scope of these agents was thoughtful and well reasoned, and this characterized his approach to science and his clinical work.

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  • Wylie Vale, 1941-2012