Since 1974 Dr. Belmaker has held positions in academic psychiatry in Israel. He chaired the local committee of the CINP meeting in Jerusalem in 1982. Dr. Belmaker's 1976 paper in Nature on lithium and second messengers was one of the first in the field. In 1994 he received a NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award on transcranial magnetic stimulation and has co-edited a book on TMS for psychiatrists. His 1996 paper in Nature Genetics on dopamine D-4 receptor polymorphisms and human personality was a landmark in the field.

He has received the Anna Monika Prize for Research in Depression (1983), the Ziskind-Somerfeld Prize for Senior Research in Biological Psychiatry (1993), the ECNP Lilly Research Award (1996), the NARSAD Falcone Award for research in affective disorder (2000) and the Research Prize of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (2004). From 1998 to 2008 he was Associate Editor of Bipolar Disorders.  He published a review of bipolar disorder in 2004 and a review of major depressive disorder in 2008, in the New England Journal of Medicine.

He served for 10 years as Chairman of his Department of Psychiatry and remains Associate Director of the Beersheva Mental Health Center. He sees patients every Monday in his public Mood Disorders Clinic and is actively involved in clinical trials as well as laboratory research.

Brian Dean began his undergraduate training at the University of Sunderland where he was awarded a Higher National Diploma in Applied Biology specialising in Pharmacology and Parasitology.  Further study at London South Bank University lead to admission to the Institute of Biology as a Licentiate (by examination) specialising in biochemistry.  Subsequently, Brian completed his Masters of Science and Doctoral Degree at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

Brian Dean has been a member of CINP since 1992.  He was a Councillor of the CINP from 2006 to 2010 and a member of the Pacific – Asia Regional Committee since 2002.  Between 2008 and 2010 Brian was a member of the Financial Governance Committee and the Education Committee of the CINP and was involved in developing the Education Stream of the CINP Congress in Hong Kong.

Brian Dean is currently and NHMRC Senior Research Fellow (Level B) and Head of the Rebecca L. Cooper Research Laboratories at the Mental Health Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia and holds an honorary position as Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne.  He has now published more than over 170 papers on the neuropsychopharmacology of psychotropic drugs and the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorders.  This research strategy is based on the posits that improved treatments for psychiatric disorders requires a better understanding of the mechanisms of action of existing drugs and a much improved understanding of the causes of psychiatric disorders.

Some of the major research discoveries made by Brian Dean’s Laboratory are that there is:
•    Increase levels of cannabis 1 receptors in the cortex of subjects with schizophrenia,
•    Decrease cortical serotonin2A receptors in schizophrenia,
•    A sub-group of subjects with schizophrenia that can be separated into a discrete population based on a loss of 75% of their cortical muscarinic M1 receptors,
•    Increased levels of transmembrane TNFα in the cortex of subjects with mood disorders,
•    Treating rats with clozapine causes regionally-selective decreases in cannabis 1 receptors,
•    A reactive metabolite of clozapine causes decreased cell survival in a human bone marrow stromal cell line.

Brian Dean is a Fellow of the Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologium and the Society of Biology (UK).  He is currently a member of the Board of the Rebecca L. Cooper Medical Research Foundation and the Finance Committee of the Schizophrenia International Research Society.  At the national level, Brian Dean is President of the Melbourne Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience and a member of the Steering Committee for Biological Psychiatry Australia.

I received my MBBS from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India in 1988 and moved to complete a residency at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh where I developed my first taste for psychiatry and research. After finishing my clinical training it became clear to me that for a clinician to contribute to the emerging sciences of our discipline I would have to obtain specialist scientific training – therefore I enrolled in a joint PhD/Clinical-Research Fellowship at the University of Toronto with a focus on PET imaging, dopamine, cognition and schizophrenia. That training led to my faculty position at the Univeristy of Toronto (1996), where I served from Assistant to Full Professor and Canada Research Chair (2002-2007) and also served in the role as Vice-President and Chief of Research of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (2003-2007). In 2007, I moved to the Institute of Psychiatry, KCL as the Professor for Schizophrenia, Imaging and Therapeutics and the Vice-Dean (Research) and Dean-designate.

My passion and scientific focus has been advancing the treatment of patients with schizophrenia – along with colleagues (Drs. Remington, Zipursky, and Seeman) I have focussed on the study of the role of the brain receptors and neurotransmitters, particularly dopamine and serotonin, and their role in schizophrenia and antipsychotic action. This work has shown that all antipsychotics (typical and atypical) block dopamine D₂ receptors in patients, though to different degrees – and that these differences are clinically very meaningful. Currently we are investigating how the “High” states of these receptors are different from their “Low” states, and whether it makes a difference in treatment. In collaborations with Drs. Fletcher, Fleming and Nobrega focusing on how animal models can be used to derive more innovative treatments for schizophrenia – and this work has pointed to the central importance of ‘sensitization’ as a key to schizophrenia and how animal studies can be informed by human imaging experiments. This work has led to nearly two hundred papers, dozens of presentations worldwide, and has been a training ground for nearly two dozen Phd students and post-doctoral Fellows. I have been fortunate to receive recognition from my peers in terms of the Young Explorer Award of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the AE Bennett Award of the Society for Biological Psychiatry and the Joel Elkes Award of the ACNP.

I have always been, and even more convinced now, that the complexity of psychiatric disorders demands integrative thinking – and it is because of this broad-based and interdisciplinary approach that I joined the CINP and treasure its meetings and interactions. The CINP meetings have consistently provided a very effective meeting place for scientists and clinicians, students and prospective supervisors, academia and industry. Thus, from the day I could afford it (Melbourne in 1996) I have always attended CINP meetings, have proposed and participated in symposia, and have been fortunate to receive your recognition (the Paul Janssen Award).

I think that there are several major challenges and opportunities that confront our field at the moment: The last two decades have seen a tremendous investment by the public sector (either in funding science, or in affording new medications) and significant new findings in the field of genetics and molecular biology. There is a growing expectation that these investments should rapidly translate, and a slight disappointment that they are not. The CINP has an important role here – in using its meetings and publications to highlight the advances that have been made, but, also to put these into perspective, to define factors that are critical in translation and to shape realistic expectations. It is important that we, the professionals who do this work, have a say in shaping the pace and expectations of ‘translation’ based on evidence, rather than on hope or hype. The second major shift is the emergence of neuropsychopharmacology, as treatment and science, in the second and third world. In the last ten years, clinical trials have moved from the ‘west’ to the ‘east.’ In the next ten or twenty – we will see a lot of new science also emerging from the ‘east.’ How to best foster these developments and how to best change the CINP to accommodate the changes of today and expectations of tomorrow remains an active challenge. Finally, while organizations like the CINP have been a forum for bringing the industry and academia together, and have also benefited from active industry support, this is a relationship that is increasingly under scrutiny for all associations. To ensure that we retain our authority with the larger public, it will be critical that we are transparent and forthright in our dealings with the industry, and are constantly changing our practices with the evolving expectations. The CINP has a critical role to play in these areas, and I hope that working together we will be able to positively impact on these issues. .

Hans-Jürgen Möller has been working in the field of psychiatry for 30 years. After obtaining his Doctor of Medical Science in 1972 from the Universities of Göttingen and Hamburg, Germany, he then specialised in psychiatry and postgraduate training at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich. Professor Möller completed a postdoctoral thesis (habilitation) in psychiatry in 1979. From 1980 to 1988 he was professor of psychiatry at Munich Technical University, and from 1988 to 1994 full professor of psychiatry and chairman of the Psychiatric Department at the University Bonn, Bonn, Germany. He is currently full professor of psychiatry and chairman of the Psychiatric Department at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich.

Professor Möller’s main scientific contributions include clinical and neurobiological research into psychiatry, schizophrenia and depression and clinical psychopharmacology. He has been a member of the boards (executive committees) of several national and international psychiatric societies, and for two years he has been a member of the CINP executive committee. From 1997 to 2001 he was president of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry. Currently, he is president of the CINP. In addition to authoring and co-authoring over 400 international publications and several books, he is also chief editor of The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry, main editor of European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, and editor of two psychiatric journals, Nervenarzt and Psychopharmakotherapie. He holds positions on the editorial boards of numerous national and international psychiatric journals.

In 2008 Professor Möller was awarded the prestigious Jean Delay Prize from the World Psychiatric Association.

Anthony Phillips received his PhD in Biopsychology from the University of Western Ontario and was a post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Biology at the California Institute of Technology. He then joined the University of British Columbia, in the Department of Psychology, and was promoted to Full Professor in 1980, serving as Head from 1994-1999. He was appointed Full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry in 2000 and in July 2005 became the Founding Director of the UBC Institute of Mental Health.

Distinguished awards include: Canada Council Killam Senior Research Scholar, 1978-80; E.W.R. Steacie Fellow (NSERC), 1980-82. In 1986 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and was also the recipient of an inaugural UBC Killam Research Prize. The Canadian Psychological Association honored him in 1995 with the Donald O. Hebb Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Science. In 1996 he was awarded the inaugural prize for Innovations in Neuropsychopharmacology by the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology (with H.C. Fibiger).

Dr. Phillips' research interests are broadly based within the field of preclinical neuropsychopharmacology and systems neuroscience. His pioneering research with H.C. Fibiger laid the foundation for the role of dopamine in the neural control of motivation and memory, with clinical implications for understanding biological correlates of addiction. He also has a long-standing interest in applying knowledge about normal brain-behavior function to understanding the neural bases of mental illness and addiction.

Dr. Phillips has played an important role in the evolution of the biotechnology industry in Canada, having been a Founding Director of QLT and serving as Secretary / Treasurer to its Board from 1982-92. He was also Founding Chairman of Stress Gen Biotechnologies, is a Founder and Member of the Board of Allon Therapeutics Inc., and is a Senior Partner in NDI Capital, a venture capital fund specializing in commercialization of discoveries in neuroscience. Recently he served as the inaugural Chair of the Advisory Board for the CIHR Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction and was re-appointed to this position until 2007. He was also a founding member of Neuroscience Canada, a not for profit corporation that provides private support for neuroscience research. Recently he was elected as a Councilor for the Society for Neuroscience.

After her graduation in 1970 as M.D. at the Faculty of Medicine, University of J. E. Purkynje, Brno, Czech Republic, she started her carrier as an experimental pharmacologist. She has served in various teaching positions in pharmacology at the Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, since 1993 as a Professor of Pharmacology, she has been and still is serving as the Head of that Department, and the Head of the Scientific Board for Ph.D. Studies in Medical Pharmacology. She has extensive and varied administrative experience, serving at the Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University as a member of the Scientific Council, the University Hospital Supervisory Board, and 7 years as the Vice-Dean for Foreign Relations. She also worked in the Pharmacological Commission of the Scientific Board of the Czech Ministry of Health.

In research, Dr. Sulcova is dedicated to neuropsychopharmacology since her Ph.D. studies completed at the Pharmacological Institute of Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic with the thesis: The role of different neurotransmitters in behavioural effects of benzodiazepines. Dr. Sulcova spent shorter working stays at pharmacological departments at universities of Cambridge (U.K.), Moscow, and St. Petersburg. She is publishing both research and educative texts in Czech and English. Her research is oriented towards behavioural pharmacology and ethopharmacology. In 1991, she participated in the organization of the "1st International Ethopharmacological Conference", in Lísek, Czech Republic, and in 1998, she served as the Chair of the Local Organising Committee of the "EBPS`98 - the 7th Biennial Meeting of the European Behavioural Pharmacology Society held as a joint meeting with the US Behavioral Pharmacology Society" in Brno, Czech Republic. With the increased penetration of drugs of abuse into the former east-block countries, her interest was focused on neurobiological and treatment studies in this field. In 1997 she organized, in collaboration with the US National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the "3rd Regional Meeting USA/Central European Countries - Mechanisms in Drug Abuse and Addiction: Translation to Treatment". The most cited papers deal with results of animal cannabinoid and methamphetamine studies, received partly in collaboration with laboratory of Prof. R. Mechoulam from Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and Preclinical Laboratories of the US NIDA.

Dr. Sulcova is a member of Editorial Boards of various home and foreign professional journals and she is active in committees of several national and international scientific societies.; e.g.: in 1999-2000 she was the President of the 52 years old Czech Neuropsychopharmacological Society (CNPS), and she has experience with memberships in the Executive Committees in CNPS, Czech Society for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, European Behavioural Pharmacology Society (EBPS) and European College of Neuropharmacology (ECNP).

Dr. Sulcova participated in all CINP Congresses since 1994. Her active involvement in CINP activities up to now can be summarized as follows. Since 2003, she has been serving as the Convener of the CINP Central/Eastern European Committee which organised, under her leadership, the following meetings hosting participants and presenters from all over the world with the educational goals to develop and provide accurate information about behavioural disorders and their pharmacological treatment: a) 2004 - CINP Regional Meeting, Brno, Czech Republic; b) 2006 - CINP Regional Meeting, Tallinn, Estonia; c) 2007 - International workshop: Addiction and Eating Disorders – Neurobiology and Comorbidities; d) 2008 - CINP Regional Meeting, Bratislava, Slovak Republic. For four years (2006-2010), Dr. Sulcova served as the CINP Councillor and for the term of 2010-2014, she was elected for the CINP Office of Vice President.