Investigators

Dr. Agid completed his MD at the Hebrew University - Hadassah Medical School in 1991 and his psychiatry residency training and board certification in 1997. He is a Senior Psychiatrist in the Department of Psychiatry, Hadassah - Hebrew University Medical Center. He began his research in the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory in 1993. His research focus is clinical, with emphasis on major affective illness, particularly depression. He has developed an algorithm-based approach to the pharmacological treatment of major depression and is studying clinical, biochemical and genetic predictors of response in the context of treatment according to the algorithm. A further, related interest is in the interaction of genetic and environmental factors, particularly early life stressors, in the pathogenesis of depression and other psychiatric disorders.

Omer Bonne MD
Tel: +972-2-677 7348
Fax: +972-2-677 7938
Email: bonne@hadassah.org.il

Dr Bonne is a graduate of the Hebrew University - Hadassah Medical School and completed his residency training in the Department of Psychiatry. He is currently Head of Outpatient Psychiatry in the Department and a Lecturer in Psychiatry. Dr. Bonne's initial training in functional brain imaging was with Prof. Guy Goodwin in the MRC Unit at Edinburgh University, UK. He was responsible, under the supervision of Prof. Lerer and in collaboration with the Department of Nuclear Medicine, for implementing functional brain imaging research in psychiatry at Hadassah. His major research interest is the application of functional brain imaging to psychiatric illness with emphasis on major affective disorders and posttraumatic stress disorder.

Eitan Gur MD
Tel: +972-2-677 7192
Fax: +972-2-6413642
Email: eitangur@hadassah.org.il

Dr. Gur is a Senior Psychiatrist at Hadassah - Hebrew University Medical Center, Lecturer in Psychiatry and Director of the Walter Schindler Center for Medical Psychotherapy. He obtained his M.D. degree at Hebrew University in 1988. He began his research in the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory in 1992 after returning from a short fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY. There, under the supervision of Prof. Elliot Gardner, he acquired expertise in the research technique of in vivo microdialysis. Together with Dr. Michael Newman he set up a microdialysis system for measuring the content of molecules present in the extracellular space of rat brain. The Theodore and Vada Stanley Foundation of the U.S.A supported the initiation of the project. The research has concentrated on the common pathways of different antidepressant treatments with specific emphasis on the serotonergic system. Recently, the research has been expanded to include new fields such as serotonergic effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and an animal model of anorexia nervosa. Dr Gur is also active in clinical research on eating disorders and on the clinical application of TMS in the treatment of depression.

Yoav Kohn MD
Tel: +972-2-677 7183
Fax: +972-2-641 3642
Email: kohn@md2.huji.ac.il

Dr. Kohn is a board certified adult psychiatrist and a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at Hadassah University Hospital. His main research interests are in the genetics of neuropsychiatric disorders. He has experience in parametric and non-parametric methods of genetic analysis. Part of his research training was at Yale University Child Study Center where he studied the genetics of Tourette's Syndrome with Drs. David Pauls and Donald Cohen. Currently, Dr. Kohn is working on a project involving a unique genetic isolate in an Arab village near Jerusalem. Apart from that he is involved in a follow-up study of children hospitalized in psychiatric inpatient units.

Ronnen H. Segman MD
Tel: +972-2-584 4317
Fax: +972-2-582 3515
Email: sronen@md2.huji.ac.il

Dr. Segman is Lecturer in Psychiatry at the Hebrew University - Hadassah Medical School, Head of the Consultation - Liaison Service at Hadassah Hospital, Mount Scopus and in charge of the molecular-genetic section of the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory. Dr Segman's research focus is on characterizing the genetic contribution to risk for major psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, affective disorders, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) as well as to modifying clinical and prognostic course and drug response profile. A related interest is in the contribution of common genetic variation to gene expression and normal brain development. Strategies employed include family based and case control association studies and characterization of the significance of polymorphic genes for normal and pathological brain function. A major effort is aimed at the study of in vivo neurochemical correlates of functional polymorphic sites. These studies employ PET brain imaging, PM material and CSF samples from normal subjects and well characterized psychiatric patients.

Avi Yakir MD
Tel: +972-2-677 7183
Fax: +972-2-641 3642
Email: ayakir@bezeqint.net

Dr. Yakir completed his MD at Ben Gurion University Medical School. He is a resident in the Department of Psychiatry, Hadassah - Hebrew University Medical Center. Dr Yakir's research interest is in refining the phenotype of schizophrenia for genetic studies using clinical, neurocognitive and brain imaging approaches.

Graduate Students