Professor Sir Michael Owen | |
---|---|
Nationality | British |
Alma mater | Birmingham University, |
Occupation | Psychiatrist |
Sir Michael John Owen [1] [2] FRCPsych FMedSci FLSW is a Welsh research scientist in the area of psychiatry, currently the head of the Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences at Cardiff University. [1]
Professor Owen is also the Director of Cardiff University's MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics and Emeritus Director of the Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute.
Owen studied medicine and neurosciences at Birmingham University, gaining a B.Sc. in anatomy in 1977 and a PhD in neuroscience in 1982, and qualifying MB ChB in 1983. He then trained in Psychiatry at Northwick Park and the Maudsley Hospital, London, obtaining his MRCPsych in 1987.
He then undertook an MRC Fellowship in John Hardy's lab at St Mary's Hospital, London [3] before moving to Cardiff in 1990. He was awarded a personal chair in 1995 and the chair in Psychological Medicine and Headship of the Department of Psychological Medicine in 1998.
His research has focused on the genetics of major psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders and he has made notable contributions to the study of schizophrenia and Alzheimer disease. He has studied the impact of genetic risk factors across diagnostic boundaries and developed a theoretical framework to understand the relationship between different neurodevelopmental disorders. [4] He has also identified specific genes and sets of proteins involved in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease, which are potential therapeutic targets.
As well as continuing his work on psychiatric genetics, he is currently undertaking research aimed at translating recent genetic findings into a greater understanding of disease mechanisms and into the development of novel biomarkers to aid classification and diagnosis.
In recognition of his achievements Professor Owen was elected to Fellowship of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1997, the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1999 and the Fellowship of the Learned Society of Wales in 2012.
In 2011, he was awarded the Stromgren Medal for psychiatric research, in 2012 the Lieber Prize jointly with Professor Michael O'Donovan for schizophrenia research, [2] and in 2013 the William K Warren Distinguished Investigator Award for schizophrenia research.
He was also awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics in 2015, and the British Neuroscience Association Award for Outstanding Contribution to Neuroscience in 2017. [5]
Professor Owen was knighted in the 2014 Birthday Honours for services to neuroscience and mental health. [6] [7] [8]
The Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) is a leading centre for mental health and neuroscience research, education and training in Europe. It is dedicated to understanding, preventing and treating mental illness, neurological conditions, and other conditions that affect the brain. The IoPPN is a faculty of King's College London, England, and was previously known as the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP).
Professor Christos Pantelis is an Australian professor of medicine who is the Director of the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre.
Eve Cordelia Johnstone CBE FRCP FRCPE FRCPGla FRCPsych FMedSci FRSE is a Scottish physician, clinical researcher, psychiatrist and academic. Her main research area is in the field of schizophrenia and psychotic illness. She is emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Honorary Assistant Principal for Mental Health Research Development and Public Understanding of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. She is best known for her 1976 groundbreaking study that showed brain abnormalities in schizophrenic patients compared to a control group.
The biopsychiatry controversy is a dispute over which viewpoint should predominate and form a basis of psychiatric theory and practice. The debate is a criticism of a claimed strict biological view of psychiatric thinking. Its critics include disparate groups such as the antipsychiatry movement and some academics.
Psychiatric genetics is a subfield of behavioral neurogenetics and behavioral genetics which studies the role of genetics in the development of mental disorders. The basic principle behind psychiatric genetics is that genetic polymorphisms are part of the causation of psychiatric disorders.
Dan Joseph Stein is a South African psychiatrist who is a professor and Chair of the Dept of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town, and Director of the South African MRC Unit on Risk & Resilience in Mental Disorders. Stein was the Director of UCT's early Brain and Behaviour Initiative, and was the inaugural Scientific Director of UCT's later Neuroscience Institute. He has also been a visiting professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in the United States, and at Aarhus University in Denmark.
Peter McGuffin was a Northern Irish psychiatrist and geneticist from Belfast.
Stephen Vincent Faraone is an American psychologist. He has worked mainly on attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and related disorders and is considered one of the most influential psychologists in the world.
Patricia Goldman-Rakic was an American professor of neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry and psychology at Yale University School of Medicine. She pioneered multidisciplinary research of the prefrontal cortex and working memory.
Irving Isadore Gottesman was an American professor of psychology who devoted most of his career to the study of the genetics of schizophrenia. He wrote 17 books and more than 290 other publications, mostly on schizophrenia and behavioral genetics, and created the first academic program on behavioral genetics in the United States. He won awards such as the Hofheimer Prize for Research, the highest award from the American Psychiatric Association for psychiatric research. Lastly, Gottesman was a professor in the psychology department at the University of Minnesota, where he received his Ph.D.
Trevor William RobbinsCBE FRS FMedSci is a professor of cognitive neuroscience and the former Head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. Robbins interests are in the fields of cognitive neuroscience, behavioural neuroscience and psychopharmacology.
Michael Shepherd, CBE, FRCP, FRCPsych (Hon), FAPA (Corr), FAPHA was one of the most influential and internationally respected psychiatrists of his time, formerly Professor of Epidemiological Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry and Consultant Psychiatrist, The Maudsley Hospital, London and author of a number of influential publications in the field of psychiatry, including the seminal work Psychiatric Illness in General Practice.
Steven Edward Hyman is Director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is also Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. Hyman was Provost of Harvard University from 2001 to 2011 and before that Director of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) from 1996 to 2001. Hyman received the 2016 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health from the National Academy of Medicine for "leadership in furthering understanding and treatment of psychiatric disorders as biological diseases".
Perminder Sachdev is an Indian neuropsychiatrist based in Australia. He is a professor of neuropsychiatry at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), co-director of the UNSW Centre for Healthy Brain Aging, and clinical director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at the Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney. He is considered a trailblazer in the field of neuropsychiatry. Sachdev's research interests include ageing, vascular cognitive disorders such as vascular dementia, and psychiatric disorders.
Cathryn Lewis is Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Statistics at King's College London. She is Head of Department at the Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience.
Ming Tso Tsuang is an American psychiatrist and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. He is considered a pioneering researcher in the genetic epidemiology of schizophrenia and other severe mental disorders. Tsuang has authored and co-authored more than 600 publications and serves as founding and senior editor of the American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B.
Michael C. O'Donovan is a Scottish psychiatric geneticist who researches the genetics of schizophrenia. He is a clinical professor in the Division of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Neurosciences and the deputy director of the MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics at the Cardiff University School of Medicine in Cardiff, Wales. He also leads the Schizophrenia Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. Educated at Glasgow University, he also serves as Academic Psychiatry Lead for the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Wales. He was lead author of a 2014 study in Nature which identified over 100 genetic loci associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia. The study, the largest of its kind undertaken at the time, was covered extensively in the media. It was also praised by Thomas Insel, the then-director of the National Institute of Mental Health, who described the study as "a big step forward".
Ganesan Venkatasubramanian is an Indian psychiatrist and clinician-scientist who works as a professor of psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore (NIMHANS). His overarching research interest to learn the science that will facilitate a personalized approach to understand and treat severe mental disorders like schizophrenia. Venkatasubramanian is known for his studies in the fields of schizophrenia, transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS), brain imaging, neuroimmunology, neurometabolism and several other areas of biological psychiatry. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to medical sciences in 2018. He was also one of the collaborating scientists in the NIMHANS-IOB Bioinformatics and Proteomics laboratory of the Institute of Bioinformatics (IOB) in Bangalore and NIMHANS. Besides, he is an adjunct faculty at the Centre for Brain Research (CBR) in Bangalore.
Joseph Thomas Coyle Jr. is an American psychiatrist and neuroscientist. He is the Eben S. Draper Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Harvard Medical School.
Robert Keers was a British psychologist conducting innovative research on individual differences in mental health problems with a specific focus on psychiatric genetics.