Robert H. Belmaker

Dr. Belmaker is the current president of the Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum (CINP). Since 1974 Dr. Belmaker has held positions in academic psychiatry in Israel. He chaired the local committee of the CINP meeting in Jerusalem in 1982. Dr. Belmaker's 1976 paper in Nature on lithium and second messengers was one of the first in the field. In 1994 he received a NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award on transcranial magnetic stimulation and has co-edited a book on TMS for psychiatrists. His 1996 paper in Nature Genetics on dopamine D-4 receptor polymorphisms and human personality was a landmark in the field.

He has received the Anna Monika Prize for Research in Depression (1983), the Ziskind-Somerfeld Prize for Senior Research in Biological Psychiatry (1993), the ECNP Lilly Research Award (1996), the NARSAD Falcone Award for research in affective disorder (2000) and the Research Prize of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (2004). From 1998 to 2008 he was Associate Editor of Bipolar Disorders. He published a review of bipolar disorder in 2004 and a review of major depressive disorder in 2008, in the New England Journal of Medicine.

He served for 10 years as Chairman of his Department of Psychiatry and remains Associate Director of the Beersheva Mental Health Center. He sees patients every Monday in his public Mood Disorders Clinic and is actively involved in clinical trials as well as laboratory research.