CINP Council 2021 - 2022

Dr. Hiroi is a Professor of the Department of Pharmacology, Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology, and Department of Cell Systems and Anatomy, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The ultimate goal of Dr. Hiroi’s research is to improve our understanding of cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying developmental neuropsychiatric disorders such as ASD, schizophrenia, and intellectual disabilities, so that solid mechanistic bases are available to develop therapeutic options. His research uses preclinical mouse and cell models of copy number variants.

Dr. Hiroi received a PhD from McGill University in 1991 and conducted post-doctoral training at MIT and Yale before starting his independent laboratory at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1998. He rose to the rank of a full professorship in 2011 at Einstein and moved his laboratory to the current affiliation in 2019.

Dr. Hiroi received an NARSAD Young Investigator Award in 1998, NARSAD Independent Investigator Award in 2006, top reviewer award from the ACNP for seven consecutive years from 2013 to 2020, Lilly Neuroscience Basic Research Award in 2016, and Outstanding Research Award (AsCNP) in 2019. He was elected as Fellow of the ACNP in 2018.

He has served on many NIH study sections and currently serves on the PMDA study section as a standing member. Dr. Hiroi is an Associate Editor of Journal of Psychiatric Research , Scientific Reports and Neuropsychopharmacology Reports, and a member of the editorial boards of Neuropsychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry.

Carlos A. Zarate M.D. is Chief Experimental Therapeutics & Pathophysiology Branch and of the Section on Neurobiology and Treatment of Mood and Anxiety Disorders, Division Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Zarate completed his residency training in psychiatry at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center/Brockton VAMC division. He later completed a fellowship in Clinical Psychopharmacology at McLean Hospital of the Consolidated Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School and remained on staff at McLean Hospital as the Director of the Bipolar and Psychotic Disorders Outpatient Services. From 1998 to 2000 Dr. Zarate was the Chief of the Bipolar and Psychotic Disorders Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In 2001, he joined the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at NIMH. His achievements and awards include the Ethel-DuPont Warren Award and Livingston Awards, Consolidated Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Outstanding Psychiatrist Research Award, Massachusetts Psychiatric Association; Program for Minority Research Training in Psychiatry, APA; the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression Young Investigator Award; National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression Independent Investigator Award; the National Institutes of Health Director’s Award Scientific/Medical, the 2011 Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Award for Bipolar Mood Disorder Research, the 2013 National Institute of Health Director’s Award—Scientific/Medical Achievement and Mogens Schou Research Award: Bipolar Disorder and the Simon-Bolivar Award American Psychiatric Association; 2015 Ruth L. Kirschtein Mentoring Award NIH and the Astute Clinician Lecture Award, NIH. Dr. Zarate is a fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and member of the Society of Biological Psychiatry and the Society for Neuroscience. Dr. Zarate’s research focuses on the pathophysiology and development of novel therapeutics for treatment-resistant mood disorders as well as the study of biomarkers and neural correlates of treatment response. 

Tianmei Si is Professor of Psychiatry, Director of the Department of Clinical Psychopharmacology, and the deputy of Peking University Institute of Mental Health (PUIMH), Beijing, China. 

Professor Si received her medical degree from Shanxi Medical University (SMU), Shanxi, China, and went on to obtain her MD and PhD at PUIMH. Following a psychiatry residency at the First Hospital of SMU, Professor Si spent 2 years at PUIMH as a Consultant Psychiatrist. She undertook a research fellowship at the Research Institute of Biological Psychiatry, St Hans Hospital, Roskilde, Denmark, prior to her current roles at PUIMH. Professor Si is an Executive Committee member of the Chinese Society of Psychiatry and the Chinese Medical Association. In addition, she is Chair of the Chinese Schizophrenia Collaborative Group. She is the present president of Asian Schizophrenia Research Institute and the elected president of Asian Collegium of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Professor Si coordinates active basic and clinical research programs centered on the clinical psychopharmacology. She is particularly interested in the hypoglutamatergic function and neurodevelopment process of schizophrenia, as well as the neuroprotective effects of antipsychotics. Currently, Professor Si and her research group are looking into the design of psychopharmacological clinical trials and the development of the Chinese Psychopharmacology Algorithm Project. As the PI, she got more than ten funds support from National Natural Science Foundation of China, Beijing Capital Foundation of Medicine Research and Development, the Ministry of Science and Technology, “12th Five-year-plan” of National Key Technologies R&D Program of China, and the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China, Ministry of Education. With the financial support of these grants, professor Si has found more interesting scientific results in the area of neuropharmacology and published more than 230 scientific papers in both local and international peer-reviewed journals. 

Professor Si has been the CINP member since 2004, after the regional CINP congress in Beijing. She insisted on working as the secretary of scientific committee for this congress, getting rid of the adverse effects of SARS epidemic in Beijing. Since then, she was active to set up a bridge between CINP and Chinese Psychiatry Society, jointly organizing a series neuropsychopharmacology training course sponsored by CINP. The sequential training benefited a lot of Chinese Psychiatrists. She was appointed as the CINP Chinese Ambassador to promote the biennial CINP Congress and CINP, these activities made CINP more attractive among Chinese psychiatrists.

Professor Si was elected as the Councilor of CINP this year, she would like to work with international colleagues to promote the development of CINP.

Dr. Atsumi Nitta graduated with a BS degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Gifu Pharmaceutical University in 1990 and obtained an M.Sc. in Pharmacy from the same institute in 1992. She received Ph.D. in Medicine from Nagoya University in 1995. She began research in the field of neuropsychopharmacology. As an Assistant Professor in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at Gifu Pharmaceutical University (1995–2002), She gained experience in various molecule biology techniques and established enzyme immunoaasay systems to measure neurotrophic factors levels in mice or human brains and in cultured medium. She found that Leu-Ile is effective for animal models of spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s disease, and depression via neurotrophic factors inductions. In 2002, she was promoted to be the Associated Professor and Vice Director of the Department of Neuropsychopharmacology and Hospital Pharmacy, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine. At Nagoya University, she joined new projects of drug addiction and schizophrenia as well as cognitive disorders both in the basic and clinical fields. She isolated new molecules associated with drug addiction and mental diseases. In 2009, She was promoted to be a full-Professor at the Department of Pharmaceutical Therapy & Neuropharmacology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Graduate School of Medicine and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Toyama. She is an appointed member for Committee of Research Center for Science System at Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and contribute to the education in School of Pharmacy to be high-level clinical pharmacists in Japan.　She served the Councilor of CINP (2018-2021, 2022-), Japan Society of Pharmacology (2005-), and the director of Japan Society of Neuropsychopharmacology (2016-2019, 2021-2024) and Japan Neurochemistry (2015-2016). In these laboratories, she continued studies on addiction, schizophrenia, depression, dementia, and neurodevelopmental disorders at the molecular, genetic, animal-behavioral, and clinical levels. She has published more than 150 articles covering these topics in scientific journals, including Int. J. Neuropsychopharmacol., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., Mol. Psychiatry, and Neuropsychopharmacology. She was awarded the Tomoji Yanagida Award, Japanese  Medical Society of Alcohol and Addiction Studies in December 2021.

Dr. Blumberg is a psychiatrist, the John and Hope Furth Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience, Professor of Psychiatry, Radiology and Biomedical Imaging and in the Child Center, and Director of the Mood Disorders Research Program at the Yale School of Medicine. Her research is devoted to understanding the causes of mood and related disorders and sucide risk across the lifespan. Her program focuses on multimodal neuroimaging research integrated with translational research approaches to identify brain circuitry differences and generate strategies to target them for early detection, interventions, and prevention. She leads international neuroimaging efforts to study bipolar and other mood disorders and suicide risk from childhood through older adulthood. She has published many seminal papers on mood disorders and received numerous awards, including the International Society of Bipolar Disorders Mogens Schou Award for Research in Bipolar Disorder, the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Colvin Prize for research in bipolar disorder, and the American Psychiatric Association Blanche F. Ittleson Award for research in children and adolescents. She studied neuroscience as an undergraduate at Harvard University graduating summa cum laude, and completed her medical degree, and psychiatry and specialty training in neuroimaging, at Cornell University Medical College prior to joining Yale’s faculty in 1998.

I am of multiracial origin, born and raised in Brazil, a developing country in the southern hemisphere, with Portuguese as my native and primary language. I have decades of experience in academic psychiatry and psychiatric research, from trainee to department chair, institute director and medical school dean, not only having done substantial amounts of basic, translational, and clinical research with my own hands, but also providing supervision and oversight to large research operations. At the CINP, I am committed to using my skills to enhance research, mentoring, and career development structures so that we can develop talent to advance neuropsychopharmacology globally.

Finally, as Editor-in-Chief, I have founded and led four Springer Nature journals: Molecular Psychiatry (1996-present, Impact Factor [IF]: 15.992), The Pharmacogenomics Journal (2001-2020), Translational Psychiatry (2011-present, IF: 6.222), and Discover Mental Health (2021). I raised the rankings of Molecular Psychiatry from non-existence to number 1 worldwide in 13 years. In the last seven years, I edited and published 44 articles by nine Nobel Prize winners. I am delighted to bring this experience to the CINP.

While studying medicine, Ms Adorjan became especially interested in the causes and treatment of mental illness, in particular the underlying biological processes of substance use disorders, trauma, psychological consequences of trauma and psychosis. Therefore, after obtaining her license to practice medicine she started working in psychiatric phenomics and genomics, a field that perfectly integrates the topics she is interested in. She joined Professor Thomas G. Schulze’s group at the Institute of Psychiatric Phenomics and Genomics (IPPG) in Munich, where she performs scientific research on psychiatric genetics. In addition, she works as a medical doctor at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Hospital of the University of Munich (Ludwig Maximilian University, LMU, Director Professor Falkai). Since 2014, she has also been a member and project coordinator at the Center for International Health (CIH) at the LMU. In March 2020, she become Senior Physician and Deputy Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (LMU). Besides medicine, she also majored in economics and political science, and her goal is to combine her knowledge from medicine, economics, and politics to help improve mental health care in low- and high-resource countries. In this context, she wants to contribute to sustainable development, particularly in African countries, by establishing biological research projects and new laboratory and treatment methods, as well as by promoting high-level education (PhD students, Master students) and improving mental health services (establishing new professions, setting up rehabilitation facilities). Her current projects include large-scale, biological, epidemiological studies on trauma and khat abuse in Ethiopia. In these studies, she is examining resilience factors in patients with khat abuse, trauma, and psychosis and how these factors interact with biological factors. Identifying factors and mechanisms of resilience is an important concern, especially in low-resource countries, where medical care cannot always be adequately provided. She is extremely interested in supporting education, service development, and research in low-resource countries in the context of sustainable development projects. In July 2022, she become Associated Professor at Jimma University, Ethiopia.

Professor Ya Mei Bai, M.D., Ph.D. is the Chief of Department of Psychiatry, Taipei Veterans General Hospital and National Yang-Ming Chao-Tung University, Taiwan. and other present academic positions include full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Institute of Brain Science at the National Yang-Ming Chao-Tung University; Deputy Director, Faculty of Medicine, National Yang-Ming Chao-Tung University. Prof Bai is the President of Taiwanese Society of Biological Psychiatry and Neuropsychopharmacology (TSBPN), responsible for CINP 2022 congress meeting in Taipei Taiwan. Prof Bai is also the Council of Asian College of Neuropsychopharmacology (AsCNP). Prof Bai completed her psychitrist residence training at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan; and completed her research fellowship from the Harvard Medical School, Boston Mclean Hospital in 2001. Her main clinical and academic interests include neuroinflammatory study including epidemiological, cognitive and neuroimaging research in schizophrenia, depressive disorder and bipolar disorder, psychopharmacological treatment and safety studies by clinical cohort study, and psycho-epidemiology big data study. Prof Bai has published more than 330 papers in the international journals, and listed as the World’s Top 2% Scientists 2021 of the most-cited scientists in various disciplines by Standford University, and in the top 1% of 2021 scholars writing about Mood Disorders over the past 10 years by Expertscape's PubMed-based algorithms. Prof. Bai has been the speaker and chairperson of many international psychiatirc meetings, the principal investigator of many international studies, and received many honors and awards including Dr. Paul Janssen Research Award of Schizophrenia, Research Award of bipolar disorder, GSK depression and anxiety research Award, Travel Award of European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) and Japan biological and neuropsychopharmacological association. Prof Bai is also the devoted in medical education, and has been voted by the medical students as the Distinguished Teacher of National Yang-Ming Chao-Tung University for more than 15 years.

Dr. Hiroyuki Uchida is an Associate Professor at the Department of Neuropsychiatry, Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo, Japan. He specializes in clinical psychopharmacology in schizophrenia and depression. He received his MD and PhD at Keio University School of Medicine in 1998 and 2006. Following his graduate training, he joined the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, and conducted brain imaging studies and pharmacokinetic work with a focus on aging in schizophrenia as a post-doctoral fellow. Dr. Uchida came back to Keio University School of Medicine and became the head of Psychopharmacology Lab. Dr. Uchida has been performing a series of clinical trials, brain imaging work, and pharmacokinetic studies, focusing on the optimal antipsychotic treatment for schizophrenia. He has authored/co-authored more than 400 articles and book chapters and received numerous academic awards, including the Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum, Poster Award, the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, Barry Lebowitz Early Career Scientist Award, and the Japanese Society of Neuropsychopharmacology, Academic Encouragement Award. He works as a co-editor for Pharmacopsychiatry, a field editor for Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, an advisory editor for Psychopharmacology, and an editorial board member for CNS Spectrums. He is a Judo black belt holder.