Serious inside baseball

As a public service to those intimately interested in the inner workings of mental health providers, here are the winners of NARSAD’s Annual Career Achievement Prizes for Psychiatric Research

The 2006 NARSAD prizes and their recipients are:

* Lieber Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Schizophrenia Research ($50,000): Jeffrey A. Lieberman, M.D., chair of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, and psychiatrist-in-chief at NewYork- Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, has been chosen to receive this prize for bringing new understanding to the development and progression of schizophrenia, and the mechanisms and effectiveness of antipsychotic drugs for treating the disease.

* Falcone Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Affective Disorders Research ($50,000): Lori L. Altshuler, M.D., is chair in mood disorders and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior, where she directs the Mood Disorders Research Program and Women’s Research Program.

* Ruane Prize for Childhood and Adolescent Psychiatric Research ($50,000): The Ruane Prize is shared this year by David A. Brent, M.D., University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and David Shaffer, M.D., Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, for their individual studies of teen suicide.

* Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Cognitive Neuroscience ($40,000): Joaquin M. Fuster, M.D., Ph.D., is professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral science at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he also serves on the medical school faculty and is a member of the Brain Research Institute and the Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior. Building on a half-century of seminal research at UCLA on the functions of the brain’s frontal lobe, Dr. Fuster is currently investigating the relationships between neural activity and cortical blood flow in working memory.

* The Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Prize ($40,000): Lorna W. Role, Ph.D. (pictured), is a professor of anatomy and cell biology at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, where for the past 21 years she has conducted promising research into the mechanisms of the central nervous system. Beginning with studies on the physiology and development of neuronal synapses responsive to nicotine, her research has focused on molecular mechanisms and neural pathways underlying motivation, memory and mood, particularly as they relate to schizophrenia.

liz | 3:56 PM | Uncategorized