NARSAD announces 2008 Prizes for Outstanding Achievement in Research on Mental Health...(to new understanding of these conditions...)

• Eric J. Nestler, M.D., Ph.D., Mount Sinai Medical Center, whose basic research studies in animal models have elucidated fundamental processes in brain development and disorders such as depression and drug abuse, who will receive the Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Cognitive Neuroscience; and

• Angus W. MacDonald, III, Ph.D., of the University of Minnesota, an early-career scientist who is conducting promising research on the genetic and neural causes of schizophrenia, who will be awarded the Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Prize for Schizophrenia Research.

NARSAD began awarding prizes in 1987, with the introduction of the Lieber Prize, and over the years added the other prizes as a way to recognize those who have made outstanding contributions to the advancement of brain science and the improvement of treatment options for patients.

Previous winners of NARSAD's Lieber Prize include two scientists who subsequently received the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 2000: Arvid Carlsson, M.D., of Gothenberg University in Sweden (Lieber Prize, 1994) and Paul Greengard, Ph.D., of Rockefeller University (Lieber Prize, 1996).

Since NARSAD began funding research in 1987, it has distributed more than $238 million in grants to over 2,700 scientists at 431 universities, medical centers and research institutes in the United States and 27 other countries. In 2008 alone, NARSAD administered a record level of grants, supporting 799 scientists who are conducting clinical and basic research relating to depression, anxiety disorders, including PTSD and OCD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, childhood mental disorders, including autism and ADHD, and many other conditions.

Preceding the awards gala on
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