NARSAD announces 2008 Prizes for Outstanding Achievement in Research on Mental Health...( (New York Oct. 16 2008) NARSAD the ...)

(New York, Oct. 16, 2008) NARSAD, the world's leading charity dedicated to mental health research, will award its annual prizes tomorrow -- among the most coveted in psychiatry and neuroscience to six prominent scientists whose research in the areas of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, childhood disorders and cognitive neuroscience have led to significant strides in the understanding and treatment of mental illness.

The prizes will be presented at NARSAD's 21st annual New York City gala, this Friday, October 17, at the Waldorf-Astoria, in Manhattan. The event will also honor Herbert Pardes, M.D., president and CEO of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, who has served as president of NARSAD's Scientific Council since its formation in 1986.

The 2008 prize winners, who were selected by NARSAD's 109-member Scientific Council, a volunteer body of leading experts in mental health research, include:

• Irving I. Gottesman, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota, a pioneer nearly half a century ago of the genetic study of mental disorders, particularly schizophrenia, who will receive the Lieber Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Schizophrenia Research;

• Charles L. Bowden, M.D., of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio, whose research has focused on the symptomatic and biological characterization of bipolar disorder, as well as the effectiveness of mood-stabilizing drugs, and Mark S. George, M.D., of the Medical University of South Carolina, one of world's leading experts in the use of brain imaging and stimulation to understand depression and to devise new antidepressant treatments, who will both receive the Falcone Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Mood Disorders Research;

• Eric A. Taylor, M.D., of King's College London, a leader in child psychiatry in Europe, whose groundbreaking research on conduct disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has led
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