Scientific Advisory Board

Desmond Fitzgerald, FRCP, Chairman

Dr. Fitzgerald has extensive experience in pharmaceutical research and development and is a co-founder of Synosia.  He initially gained a science degree and qualified in medicine, subsequently specializing in gastroenterology.  He joined the pharmaceutical industry in the early 1960s and enjoyed an 18-year career in research and development in ICI’s Pharmaceuticals Division (now AstraZeneca), becoming general manager of research and then joining the Pharmaceutical Divisional Board as International Medical Director.  He was involved in the discovery of several cardiovascular drugs, including the widely prescribed beta blocker Tenormin®.

He has returned to academia at various points in his career, becoming professor of medicine at McMaster University in Canada, and subsequently visiting professor of pharmaco-epidemiology at McGill University in Canada and a visiting professor of pharmacology at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.

Dr. Fitzgerald is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine.

Thomas Kosten, MD

Dr. Kosten, M.D. is Jay H. Waggoner chair and professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine and a former professor and chief of psychiatry at Yale University and Veterans Affairs (VA), Connecticut. He is Research Director of the VA national Substance Use Disorders Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) based at the Houston VA. He also is founder of the Division of Substance Abuse at Baylor and Yale and directs their National Institutes of Health Medications Development Center for substance abuse.

He has been supported by a Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Health since 1987 and has served on national and international review groups for medications development in substance abuse. He has been a Congressional fellow in the House of Representatives and a visiting professor in Germany, Spain, Greece, China and Canada.

From his studies in substance dependence, post traumatic stress disorder, and neuro-imaging he has published over 450 papers, books and reviews. His neuro-imaging research includes detecting and treating cocaine induced cerebral perfusion defects and using functional MRI to predict pharmacotherapy outcome. His medication contributions include a cocaine vaccine, immunotherapy for hallucinogens, buprenorphine for opioid dependence, disulfiram for cocaine dependence, vasodilators for cocaine induced cerebral perfusion defects and combining medications with contingency management for opioid and cocaine dependence.

David Grahame-Smith, CBE, FRCPS

Dr. Grahame-Smith is emeritus professor of clinical pharmacology, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, where he held a number of positions including Rhodes professor of clinical pharmacology, director of the Medical Research Council Unit of Clinical Pharmacology and director of the SmithKline Beecham Centre for Applied Neuropsychobiology.

In his diverse career, he was also a visiting professor in clinical pharmacology Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, as well as a consultant in clinical pharmacology to the Royal Air Force and in pharmacology to the British Army.  In addition, he served as an examiner in therapeutics in the United Kingdom and abroad.

He is author of the Carcinoid Syndrome and the Oxford Textbook of Clinical Pharmacology and Drug Therapy, is a former member of the British National Pharmacological Committee and the Committee on the Safety of Medicine and was chairman of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

In 1993, he was made a Commander of the British Empire, which is bestowed in recognition of distinguished service. 

Alan Schatzberg, MD

Dr. Schatzberg is the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr., professor of psychiatry & behavior sciences and chairman of the department of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine.   He is an active investigator in the biology and psychopharmacology of anxiety and depressive disorders. He has authored or edited over 600 publications and abstracts, including the Manual of Clinical Psychopharmacology and Textbook of Psychopharmacology (currently in their 6th and 3rd editions respectively). 

He is past President of both the American College of Neuropsychopharmacoloy and the Society of Biological Psychiatry.  Dr. Schatzberg was a co-founder of Corcept Therapeutics, a biotechnology company interested in developing glucocorticoid antagonists for treating patients with psychotic disorders.