CINP Council 2021 - 2022

Dr. Ryota Hashimoto is a director, Department of Pathology of Mental Diseases, National Institute of Mental Health, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Japan (2018~).  Dr. Hashimoto graduated Osaka University School of Medicine (1995) and was a resident of Department of Psychiatry, Osaka University Hospital (1996). After he got a PhD in Psychiatry from Osaka University (2000), he was a post doc at National Institute of Mental Health, NIH (Section of Neurobiology and Clinical Brain Disorder Branch) in USA (2000-2003). Dr. Hashimoto worked as a researcher and psychiatrist at Section Chief in Department of Mental Disorder Research, National Institute of Neuroscience, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, Japan (2003-2006) and then Associate professor in Molecular Research Center for Children's Mental Development, United Graduate School of Child Development, Osaka University (2006-2018).

Dr. Hashimoto is investigating the diagnostic and therapeutic methods of mental illnesses including schizophrenia, mood disorders and autism spectrum disorders using neuropsychological, neurophysiological, neuroimaging, neuropsychopharmacological, and genetic methods using large database and research resource with 4000 subjects he collected at Osaka University. Dr. Hashimoto spearheads Cognitive Genetics Collaborative Research Organization (COCORO), which consists of 39 leading institutes of biological psychiatry in Japan. Dr. Hashimoto also a member of creating clinical practice guidelines, Pharmacotherapy of Schizophrenia and Major Depressive disorder in Japan, and developed “EGUIDE (Effectiveness of GUIdeline for Dissemination and Education in psychiatric treatment) project” to spread clinical practice guidelines for improvement of quality of medical care in psychiatry, which consists of 94 hospitals in psychiatric fields.

Katharina Domschke, MA, MD, PhD, is Full Professor of Psychiatry and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Freiburg, Germany.

She completed her studies in medicine and psychology at the University of Muenster, Germany, and Trinity College Dublin, Ireland (M.D., 2004), as well as Boston University, Boston, MA, USA (M.A., 2002), and Maastricht University, The Netherlands (Ph.D., 2010). After her board certification as a psychiatrist she worked as an attending physician and associate professor at the Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Muenster, Germany. In 2012, she was appointed Full Professor of Psychiatry and in 2014 Vice Chair of the Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Wuerzburg, Germany. Since 2016, she is Chair and Full Professor at the Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Freiburg, Germany, and Adjunct Professor at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria.

Her clinical and teaching focus is on depression, anxiety, OCD and PTSD. Scientifically, Prof. Domschke is a renowned expert in genetics, epigenetics, imaging genetics and therapygenetics of anxiety and depression as reflected by to date ~200 publications in international journals and 25 book chapters.

Her work has been recognized by e.g. the WFSBP Research Award, the WPA Fellowship Award and the ECNP Fellowship Award. Prof. Domschke has received funding from the EU, the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF). She is a full member of ACNP, ECNP, ISPG, SOBP, the German Society of Biological Psychiatry (DGBP) and the German Society of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology (DGPPN). Prof. Domschke serves on the editorial boards of e.g. the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, Pharmacopsychiatry, Progress in Neuropsychopharmacology & Biological Psychiatry and the World Journal of Biological Psychiatry.

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 my Ph.D. in Medicine from Nagoya University in 1995. She began my 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 Assistant 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. I 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 the Technical Committee of the Japanese Government, including the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, and contribute to the education in School of Pharmacy to be high-level clinical pharmacists in Japan.

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 J. Neurosci. She was awarded the Distinguished Young Scientist (Japanese Society for Neurochemistry) in 2004, among several other awards.

Peter Falkai has been working in the field of psychiatry for 30 years. His main research interest is focused on the neurobiology of psychotic disorders, namely schizophrenia. He holds the position of Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the University of Munich.

Prof. Falkai has been leading multidisciplinary teams of researchers, allowing the use of techniques ranging from functional imaging to gene expression in human post-mortem-tissue. His clinical and research expertise focuses continuously on the neurobiological origins and pathomorphological aspects as well as on causal treatment options of psychotic disorders.

Prof. Falkai has managed to obtain state funding for numerous of his research projects and has also received various research awards. He has been involved in creating treatment guidelines for schizophrenia for the German Society of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Nervous Diseases (DGPPN) and for the World Federation of the Biological Societies (WFSBP). He was Chairman of the DGPPN from 2011-2012 and Chairman of the Council of National Societies (NPAs) of the European Psychiatric Association (EPA) from 2012-2014.

Dr. Tamminga is a Professor, Chairman of Psychiatry and Chief of Translational Neuroscience Research in Schizophrenia at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School.  She holds the Communities Foundation of Texas Chair in Brain Science along with the Lou and Ellen McGinley Distinguished Chair in Psychiatric Research.  She directs clinical and preclinical research in schizophrenia focused on identifying disease mechanisms and on improving treatments.  Dr. Tamminga graduated from Vanderbilt Medical School and completed a Psychiatry Residency at the University of Chicago and spent many years at the University of Maryland, MPRC, then moved to UT Southwestern Medical School to continue her research. Dr. Tamminga has been the recipient of numerous federal and foundation grants, as well as Award in the field.  She has served on the National Advisory Mental Health Council, NIMH and the Council of the National Institute of Drug Abuse.   Dr Tamminga was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 1998 and has served on several IOM committees in that capacity.

The goal of Dr. Tamminga’s research is to examine and understand the mechanisms underlying schizophrenia, especially its most prominent symptoms, psychosis and memory dysfunction, in order to build rational treatments for the illness.  She evaluates the function of the living human brain in individuals with and without schizophrenia using brain imaging techniques.  Then, building on this knowledge, she uses human postmortem brain tissue to translate the functional alterations from the living human patient into molecular observations of the illness.  Now she is using case-specific neuronal cultures to address molecular and cellular questions.  Her ultimate goal is to use the alterations in in vivo imaging, postmortem molecular changes and cultured neuronal characteristics as biomarkers and targets for identifying animal models of disease and novel active pharmaceuticals for psychosis.    

Professor Allan Young holds the Chair of Mood Disorders at King’s College London where he is also Director of the Centre for Affective Disorders within the Department of Psychological Medicine in the Institute of Psychiatry. He has held academic appointments at the Universities of Oxford, Newcastle upon Tyne (latterly holding the Chair of General Psychiatry at Newcastle), UBC, Vancouver, Canada, where he held the Leading Edge Endowment Fund Endowed Chair in Research in the Department of Psychiatry and was also the Director of the Institute of Mental Health and Imperial College London where he held the Chair of Psychiatry and was Director of the Centre for Mental Health.

Professor Young’s research interests focus on the cause and treatments for severe psychiatric illnesses, particularly mood disorders. He has received research grant funding from the UK Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Stanley Medical Research Institute, and the Canadian Institutes for Heath Research (CIHR), the National Institutes of Health (USA) and numerous other funding agencies. He has published over 400 peer-reviewed publications and a number of books about psychopharmacology and affective disorders including ‘Bipolar disorders: basic mechanisms and therapeutic implications’ (2nd Ed.) with JC Soares, and ‘Practical management of bipolar disorder’ with IN Ferrier and E Michalak (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

Professor Young is a member of a number of editorial boards and is a member of numerous professional and scientific societies. He is Immediate Past President of the International Society for Affective Disorders and the current President of the British Association of Psychopharmacology.

Dr. Ming-Chyi Huang has been serving as an attending psychiatrist in the Department of Addiction Sciences in Taipei City Psychiatric Center. (TCPC). Her clinical and academic interests are mainly related to addictive disorders, including searching for clinical biomarkers for the toxicity and neuroadaption related to addiction. She has conducted clinical trials of pharmacotherapy or non-pharmacotherapy (smartphone application) for alcohol dependence. In recent years, she has been focusing on the neuropsychological consequences of ketamine abusers and functional connectivity related to methamphetamine psychosis. Dr. Huang is the chief of Laboratory of Clinical and Translational Studies in Biological Psychiatry and Department of Addiction Sciences in TCPC.

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.