Canadian College of
Neuropsychopharmacology

Dr. James (Jim) Kennedy has training in three major areas: neuroscience, clinical psychiatry, and molecular genetics. His main research interest over the past 30 years has been investigating the role of genetics in the causes and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. His discoveries include: 1) the remarkable variation in the DRD4 gene (with Dr van Tol) and its role in ADHD, one of the most consistently replicated findings in all of behavioral genetics; 2) defining the roles of the DRD3 (issued patent) and VMAT2 genes in Tardive Dyskinesia (VMAT2 drug valbenazine FDA approved for TD in 2017); and 3) the creation of a six gene panel for prediction of antipsychotic-induced weight gain (Tiwari et al, 2016 issued US patent). Dr. Kennedy has one of the most comprehensive collections of DNAs (N = 35,000) for any one PI in the world in terms of range of psychiatric disorders (N=18) and sub-phenotypes (N=50+). In his role as head of the Tanenbaum Centre for Pharmacogenetics, he is leading a pharmacogenomics research program (N=12,000 patients tested), and randomized controlled trials (N=500) involving patients with schizophrenia and depression. He has trained over 40 graduate students and 55 research fellows, several of whom are now Full Professors. He currently supervises 12 Principal Investigator level scientists in his role as Director of the Molecular Brain Science Department at CAMH.

Dr. Krista L. Lanctôt has a PhD in Clinical Pharmacology from the University of Toronto, and holds the Bernick Chair in Geriatric Psychopharmacology. She is a Senior Scientist in Geriatric Psychiatry and in the Hurvitz Brain Sciences Program at Sunnybrook Research Institute, Research Co-Director in the Department of Psychiatry at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Heads the Geriatric Psychopharmacology Research Group. At the University of Toronto, she is a Professor of Psychiatry and of Pharmacology/Toxicology, and the Vice Chair of Basic and Clinical Sciences in the Department of Psychiatry.

Dr. Lanctôt is an active researcher 400+ published papers. Her group’s research has focused on optimizing the treatment of cognition and neuropsychiatric symptoms associated with dementia and in predementia states. She was part of the International Psychogeriatric Association consensus clinical and research definition of agitation group in 2014 and 2024, and the 2021 IPA agitation treatment algorithm. She was group co-lead and corresponding author for the 2023 ISCTM diagnostic criteria for apathy. She currently holds grants as a Principal Investigator from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, Alzheimer Society of Canada, Alzheimer’s Association US, Weston Brain Institute and Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She is a full member of the School of Graduate Studies in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, previous winner of the Faculty of Medicine Graduate Education Award, and has trained more than 40 graduate students.

Dr. McGirr is a clinician scientist and psychiatrist based out of the University of Calgary and Hotchkiss Brain Institute. His primary research interests involve understanding intrinsic brain function in psychiatric disorders in order to augment and improve interventions. In particular, his group is are interested in non-invasive neurostimulation treatments to target specific circuits involved in illness with tools such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, and how to use psychopharmacological innovations to fully harness the clinical benefits for patients. In parallel, they seek to further this understanding in animal models of chronic stress using advanced, in vivo, genetically encoded neuronal activity sensors in conjunction with optogenetic techniques to inform human treatments. The overarching goals, therefore, constitute an iterative bedside-to-bench-to-bedside feed forward loop, advancing long-term goals of improving outcomes in psychiatric disorders.

Dr. Labonté is Associate Professor at Université Laval and Research Chair in partnership with Sentinel North – Molecular Neurobiology of Mood Disorders. Dr. Benoit Labonté’s research aims to understand the biological basis of depression and other mood disorders, with a specific focus on sex differences. Although depression is twice as common in women, most preclinical studies have been conducted primarily in males. Dr. Labonté’s research has recently shown that genes expressed in the brains of model animals and humans with depression are very different in the two sexes.

Dr. Labonté’s research focuses on mouse models of mood disorders, but his results have been confirmed by the analysis of human samples from brain banks and blood tests. These studies have identified genes and proteins that are specifically activated or repressed in depressed males or females. These genes constitute therapeutic targets that could be used to treat this disease in a personalized fashion.

Finally, studies in the Labonté laboratory also aim to understand the neural circuits involved in the regulation of mood. By combining multiple cellular and molecular approaches, his team can understand the contribution that certain neuronal populations make to the expression of depressive behaviors.

It is therefore in the context of developing better, more targeted therapeutic approaches to treat men and women that Dr. Labonté’s team aims to improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying mood disorders.

• Abdullah Abdullah - University of Calgary
• Oriel Feldman - University of Toronto
• Bertina Jebanesan - Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)
• Yingqui Laetitia Wang - Western University
• Qiya Xu - University of Ottawa
• Cassandra Hidalgo - Carleton University