Chairman: Professor Elliot Gershon

Professor Elliot Gershon has agreed to accept the post of Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Institute for Psychobiology in Israel beginning January 2003. Prof. Gershon is a leading American psycho-biologist who has done basic and applied research in the fields of neurobiology, genetics and the treatment of mental disorders.

Professor Elliot Gershon joined Chicago University in July 1998 as the Foundations' Fund Professor and Chairman in Psychiatry. Professor Gershon came from the National Institute of Mental Health, where he headed the clinical neurogenetics branch since 1984. He has also been a medical director in the United States Public Health Service since 1975. Before joining the NIMH Biological Psychiatry Branch in 1974, Professor Gershon was director of research at the Jerusalem Mental Health Center in Israel. An authority on the genetics of psychiatric disorders, Professor Gershon is a leader in the search for genes that contribute to the development of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He received the Selo Prize of the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders in 1996. Professor Gershon, routinely named in the publication "The Best Doctors in America" for care of patients with mood disorders, received his B.A. and his M.D. from Harvard 1965. A member of the editorial boards of several psychiatric journals and former President of the American Psychopathological Association, he has edited four books and written more than 300 articles on the neurobiology, genetics and treatment of mental disorders.

When Dr. Gershon arrived in Jerusalem in 1971 to set up the first department of psychiatric research in Israel, his efforts were heavily supported by the then fledgling Institute for Psychobiology. As he now assumes the post of Chairman of the Board of Trustees, he can take pride in three decades of growth of Israeli psychobiology research, which is now well-rooted, widespread and top quality in Israel. His challenge as Chairman of the Board will be to maintain and deepen a firm financial and public relations base for the enterprise he helped create over thirty years ago. We are proud to have Professor Gershon assume the chair of the Psychobiology Institute.