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Four Chairs in Psychiatry
At a reception in September, the Department of Psychiatry honored
four new holders of endowed chairs and the donor of two of those chairs,
Dr. Karl Rickels (see
front page). The honorees, and some notes on their contributions
to the field:
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Karl E. Rickels Professor: Dr. Berrettini
Dr. Wade Berrettini, who joined PennMed in 1997 as professor and director
of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, is the first Karl E. Rickels
Professor of Psychiatry, in the chair established by Dr. Karl Rickels in
honor of his father (see
front page). Dr. Berrettini is an alumnus of Dickinson College with
an M.D. and Ph.D. in pharmacology from Thomas Jefferson University. His
scientific achievements include mapping a gene for susceptibility to manic-depressive
illness (bipolar disorder) to the short arm of chromosome 18 and delineating
the role of the mu opioid receptor gene in genetic susceptibility to heroin
dependence. In addition to genetic studies of bipolar disorder, he investigates
genetic susceptibility to anorexia nervosa, alcoholism and epilepsy. In
1996, Dr. Berrettini received the Selo Prize from the National Alliance
for Research in Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD) for outstanding achievement
in the study of depression. |
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Karl and Linda Rickels Professor: Dr. Lenox
The first to hold the new chair named for Professor Rickels and his wife
is Dr. Robert H. Lenox, vice chair of research development, who has been
professor of psychiatry, pharmacology and neuroscience and director of the
Molecular Neuropsychopharmacology Program since 1998. He is an MIT alumnus
who took his M.D. from Vermont, and is internationally known for providing
insights into the biological basis of the treatment and underlying pathophysiology
of manic depressive illness. A recipient of the NARSAD Distinguished Investigator
Award and the Ziskind-Somerfeld Basic Science Award from the Society of
Biological Psychiatry, he is on the scientific advisory boards for the NIH
and the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Depressive Disorders
and the National Depressive and Manic Depression Association. He was recently
named Editor-in-Chief of Neuropsychopharmacology, the journal of
the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. |
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Ruth Meltzer Professor: Dr. Evans
As chair of the psychiatry department, Dr. Dwight L. Evans takes an endowed
chair created in 1992 by the philanthropist Ruth Meltzer to foster the relationship
between psychiatry and law and promote the healthy growth and development
of children.
Dr. Evans is internationally known for his research on the impact of
stress and depression on other diseases including cancer, AIDS and cardiac
cases, and the molecular mechanisms that may underlie such relationships
between the brain and the body. A graduate of Elizabethtown College, he
took his M.D. at Temple and was a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar at North Carolina
before joining Penn in 1997. A fellow of the American College of Psychiatry
and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, he is a senior examiner
for the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and was recently named
to the board of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. In 1997,
he received one of the highest honors in the field, the Klerman Lifetime
Research Award of the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Assocaition. |
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Kenneth C. Appel Professor: Dr. O'Brien
Dr. Charles P. O'Brien, professor and vice chair of psychiatry, has been
named to the chair established in 1965 to honor Dr. Appel, the longime PennMed
faculty member and department chair (1952-62) who was instrumental in establishing
the U.S. Joint Commission on Mental Health and Mental Illness, and in bringing
the Marriage Council of Philadelphia into the department.
Dr. O'Brien, a Tulane alumnus who also took his M.D. and Ph.D. there,
has been at Penn since completing his residency here in 1969 and is chief
of psychiatry at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center as well
as director of the University's Center for Studies of Addiction. Working
in the psychopharmacology of addiction--and the development of new behavioral
and pharmacological treatments for addiction, including alcoholism, through
using controlled clinical trials--he and his team have been responsible
for numerous discoveries that have improved the results of treatment for
addictive disorders. A member of the Institute of Medicine of the National
Academy of Sciences, he also holds an honorary doctorate from Bordeaux,
and was recently elected President of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. |
Almanac, Vol. 46, No. 6, October 5, 1999
| FRONT
PAGE | CONTENTS
| JOB-OPS
| CRIMESTATS
| COUNCIL
YEAR END REPORTS 98-99 | TALK
ABOUT TEACHING | BETWEEN
ISSUES | OCTOBER at PENN
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