INNOVATION IN CNS EXPERIMENTAL MEDICINE

Hammersmith Medicines Research (HMR) is a specialist clinical pharmacology unit, with 100 beds in a purpose-designed building, close to an NHS hospital. Since 1993, they have provided industry-leading services to pharmaceutical companies for phase 1 trials, in healthy subjects or patients, and early phase 2 trials.

Transpharmation provides translational pre-clinical pharmacology services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, with the aim of better understanding potential new medicines as they transition into the clinic.

Bill Deakin has been Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Manchester since 1990. His research interests are in developing new treatments for depression and schizophrenia based on imaging and other investigations of normal and pathological neurotransmitter function, particularly of the serotonin and glutamate systems in humans.

Nick Girdler is Professor of Sedation Dentistry at Newcastle University. His research interests are in sedation dentistry and the treatment of anxiety disorders in patients with dental phobia.

Guy Goodwin has been W A Handley Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford since 1996. His research interests are in the treatment of bipolar disorder and the application of neuroscience in understanding the neurobiology of mood disorder and developing new treatments.

Catherine Harmer is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Head of the Psychopharmacology and Emotion Research laboratory at the University Department of Psychiatry in Oxford. Her interests focus on the neuropsychology of antidepressant and anxiolytic drug action and in the development of early biomarker tests of drug efficacy.

Suzanne Higgs is a Reader in the School of Psychology at the University of Birmingham. Her research interests focus on cognitive and biological influences on appetite, including the role of learning and memory in controlling food intake and drug taking, and the potential role of these factors in the development of obesity and drug addiction.

Robin Morris is a consultant neuropsychologist at King’s College Hospital, where he is head of the Clinical Neuropsychology Department. His main interests are in the neuropsychology of memory and also of executive functioning. He has conducted research on a range of patients with neuropsychological disorder, including those with focal brain damage, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease.

David Nutt is The Edmond J Safra Chair in Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London. His research interests are in the psychopharmacology of anxiety, addiction and insomnia.

John Wilding is Head of the Department of Obesity and Endocrinology at the University of Liverpool. His research interests are in the clinical management of obesity and diabetes, the neurobiology of obesity and the development of new treatments for obesity and metabolic disorders.

Lawrence Wilkinson is Professor of Behavioural Genetics and Head of the Behavioural Genetics Group at Cardiff University. His research interests include the study of gene variants influencing impulsive behaviours, the familial dementias, imprinted gene effects on behaviour and the translation of pre-clinical models into a better understanding of psychopathology in people

Steve Williams is Professor of Imaging Sciences and Head of the Centre for Neuroimaging Sciences at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. His research interests include the development of novel imaging methods for visualising CNS disorders and the translation of imaging methods from pre-clinical observations to the clinic.

The Kissileff Laboratory is a purpose built suite of rooms designed for the experimental study of human eating, the expression of appetite and the development of eating disorders. Professor Steve Cooper and Dr Jason Halford are the Co-directors of the Laboratory.