The Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health 2015 Honoree

Kenneth S. Kendler, MD Rachel Brown Banks Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Director, Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University

The 2015 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health is awarded to Kenneth Kendler for his pioneering research at the intersection of genetic factors and mental disorders. Dr. Kendler has dedicated his career to unraveling the genetic pathways that make certain people vulnerable to devastating psychiatric and drug abuse disorders. In the early 1980s, Dr. Kendler developed a new paradigm for large-population, longitudinal twin studies to show that genetic factors play an important etiologic role in all major mental disorders, including generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, major depression, phobias, bulimia, conduct disorder, personality disorders, alcohol abuse and dependence, nicotine dependence, and illicit drug abuse and dependence. Among the major findings of his work are that the person–environment relationship is bidirectional; and that susceptibility genes for drug abuse have a far greater effect on risk in a pathogenic than in a benign family environment. Dr. Kendler has led several major molecular genetics studies of psychiatric disorders, including the foundational Irish Study of High-Density Schizophrenia Families. As co-director of the CONVERGE Study funded by the Wellcome Trust and the National Institutes of Health, he is leading efforts to determine the molecular genetics of recurrent major depression in women. And at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), he established the groundbreaking “Spit for Science” study, which has since 2012 collected DNA and longitudinal questionnaire data from 7,500 first-year students to assess drug use and psychiatric outcomes. Dr. Kendler has a longstanding interest in the relationship between philosophy and psychiatry, and has organized four international conferences to increase collaboration between the two fields. The author of more than 900 peer-reviewed journal articles, Dr. Kendler is also the editor of the international journal Psychological Medicine and active in teaching at VCU. He has been a major contributor to multiple editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Dr. Kendler’s awards and honors include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics and the Jean Delay Prize from the World Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. The Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health honors outstanding achievement in improving mental health, recognizing achievements in basic science, clinical application, and public policy that lead to progress in the understanding, etiology, prevention, treatment, or cure of mental disorders or the promotion of mental health. The prize was established in 1991 by Rhoda Sarnat, a clinical social worker, and her husband Bernard Sarnat, a researcher and plastic and reconstructive surgeon, who witnessed firsthand the deleterious effects of mental illness on the lives of those they served. The prize is accompanied by a medal and $20,000.

Past Recipients

2014 2007 1998 Vikram Patel, FMedSci Beatrix Hamburg, MD David Kupfer, MD Wellcome Trust, London School of and University of Pittsburgh Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and David Hamburg, MD 1997 Public Health Foundation of India Weill Cornell Medical College Herbert Pardes, MD 2013 2006 Columbia University William T. Carpenter, MD Jack D. Barchas, MD 1996 University of Maryland School of Weill Cornell Medical College Leon Eisenberg, MD Medicine 2005 Harvard Medical School 2012 Floyd E. Bloom, MD 1995 Huda Akil, PhD Neurome, Inc. Samuel B. Guse, MD and 2004 Washington University in St. Louis Stanley J. Watson, MD, PhD Albert J. Stunkard, MD School of Medicine University of Michigan, Ann Arbor University of Pennsylvania Barnes and Renard Hospital 2011 2003 1994 William E. Bunney, MD Aaron T. Beck, MD Myrna Weissman, PhD University of California, Irvine, School University of Pennsylvania Columbia University College of of Medicine 2002 Physicians and Surgeons and and Ellen Frank, PhD David Satcher, MD, PhD Morehouse School of Medicine Gerald Klerman, MD University of Pittsburgh School of Cornell University Medical College Medicine 2001 Michael L. Rutter, MD 1993 2010 Seymour S. Kety, MD Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD King’s College London and National Institute of Mental Health Mount Sinai School of Medicine Harvard Medical School and Solomon H. Snyder, MD Charles P. O’Brien, MD, PhD Johns Hopkins University School of 1992 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine Daniel X. Freedman, MD Medicine 2000 University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine 2009 Rosalynn Carter David Mechanic, PhD The Carter Center Rutgers University 1999 2008 Nancy C. Andreasen, MD, PhD Paul R. McHugh, MD University of Iowa Hospitals and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Clinics Public Health

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