With a career spanning over 50 years and more than 600 applications, Dr. Samuel Gershon has had an important influence on the field of psychiatry.  Beginning his clinical work in 1951 at the University of Sydney, Dr. Gershon’s early work with his Australian colleagues suggested a pharmacological specificity for lithium in the treatment of manic patients.  During his first trip to the United States in 1959, he played a significant role in spreading the data on lithium through interactions with colleagues at the University of Michigan.  Eventually, Dr. Gershon would move to the US permanently and establish a productive career as the Director of Neuropsychopharmacology Research Unit at New York University for 16 years.  Much of the work conducted in New York was translational, with colleagues involved in both the pre-clinical and clinical components.

In April of 1988, Dr. Gershon continued his career at the University of Pittsburgh as Associate Vice Chancellor for Research in the Health Sciences and Associate Director of Neurosciences in the Department of Psychiatry.  During this period he continued to distinguish himself as a leader and educator with his teaching activities as part of the Postdoctoral Training Program in Clinical Pharmacology, which included lectures, seminars, and Journal Club for psychiatry residents and medical students.  His dedication to the field of psychiatry has earned him the respect of his peers and those who benefited from his work as an educator, and these cross-generational collaborations and interactions have earned him a place among the thought and opinion leaders in the field of psychiatry.   Acknowledgment of his accomplishments in the field is evident in the many awards and honors he has received, including the Pfizer Scholarship for Medical Research Overseas, the American Psychiatric Association’s Rush Gold Medal Award, and the 6th International Conference on Bipolar Disorders’ Mogens Schou Award for Distinguished Service. 

Outside of his academic appointments, Dr. Gershon has offered his time in service on numerous scientific, training and planning committees and has served as an editorial reviewer for several prestigious psychiatric journals.  In addition to being the founding editor of Bipolar Disorders, he served as the President of the International Society of Bipolar Disorders from 2002 to 2005, and he continues to make important contributions to the field as a co-editor of the Bipolar Disorders.

Dr. Gershon now holds a position as Vice Chairman for Academic Affairs in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, and he continues to reach milestone after milestone.    

A pioneer in the field of modern neuroscience, Jean-Pierre G. Changeux is emeritus professor at the Pasteur Institute and at the Collège de France in Paris. He received a doctorate in 1964 under the tutelage of Jacques Monod of the Pasteur Institute and completed postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons before returning to the Pasteur Institute.

As a graduate student, Changeux conduct studies on the experimental basis and theoretical foundations of allosteric interactions between topographically distinct sites in proteins. He subsequently identifies the first protein receptor of a neurotransmitter—the nicotinic receptor of acetylcholine— and contributes to the understanding of its function in signal transduction as an allosteric membrane protein and to its role in synaptic plasticity, nicotine addiction and higher brain functions such as cognitive learning, reward mechanisms, and consciousness.

Changeux has written or co-written several books on neuroscience for general audiences, including Neuronal Man; Conversations on Mind, Matter and Mathematics; What Makes Us Think; and The Physiology of Truth.

He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the recipient of numerous honors including the Gairdner foundation award, the Richard Lounsbery Prize, the Wolf Prize, the Balzan Prize, the National Academy of Science's Award in Neuroscience.

Born in Vienna, Hannah Steinberg came to England as a child refugee and lived with kind strangers. 

After school, secretarial training, and some classified war work, she obtained 1^st class honours in psychology at UCL in 1948 and a postgraduate studentship for a PhD.

The Professor of Pharmacology, with exceptional foresight, since there was no subject as yet, invited her to join his department to study psychological effects of drugs.  At her objection that she barely knew what drugs were, he laughed and said “teach them English.”

She was given a pleasant laboratory, a technician and jumbled equipment for administering low doses of nitrous oxide (laughing gas). She also taught pre-clinical medical students, which provided a ready supply of volunteers.

By sheer luck, she was able to show that cognitive performances were impaired by N2O differently according to their complexity – (PhD 1954) – and she became a psychopharmacologist – one of the earliest.

Her best known work demonstrated a surprising dramatic and mutual potentiation of amphetamines and barbiturates on rodent locomotion and also on human performance (cf “purple hearts”).  She also co-published new work on drug addiction, the role of the environment and past experience in drug effects and individual differences in reactions to drugs.

Hannah’s initial loneliness soon yielded to collaborators.  About then, psychopharmacology began to take off in the USA with large resources, which also supported her.  Throughout, she lectured widely and took part in meetings in universities and research centres in the USA, Europe and elsewhere, arranged symposia and published or co-published more than 200 original papers and reviews and two important international symposia.  Her advice and help were much sought by students, research workers worldwide and also by organisations such as the Medical Research Council, UK.

She took a prominent part in the foundation of the CINP in 1968 and was elected a Vice-President in that year. 

In 1970, Hannah became the first University Professor of Psychopharmacology in the western world and the USA and was Head of the Psychopharmacology Group at UCL from 1979-1992.

She retired from UCL in 1992 to an honorary position there and became an Emeritus Professor of the University of London, but also moved to a new appointment as Visiting Professor of Middlesex University, where she continued with research and teaching. 

The discovery of endorphins led to an interest in the benefits and hazards of physical exercise, exercise addiction, and anxiety, for which Hannah co-edited six innovative occasional publications for the British Psychological Society.

Her honours include Distinguished Affiliate, American Psychological Association, Division of Psychopharmacology, 1978; Honorary Member, British Association for Psychopharmacology 1992; British Association for Psychopharmacology/Astra Zeneca Lifetime Achievement Award 2001; DSc, University of London 2002; Honorary Fellow, British Psychological Society 2007, and CINP Pioneer Award 2008.

She does not think that “retirement” ever really applies to the activities of a productive scientist.