Keynote Speakers - Glasgow CINP2026

David Nutt

David is Prof of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London He obtained an Open Scholarship in Medicine at Downing College Cambridge then completed his clinical training at Guy’s hospital London. He did his doctorate at the MRC Clinical Pharmacology Unit in Oxford subsequently becoming a University Lecturer and then a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow in psychiatry. Then followed two years as head of the research ward at NIAAA in the USA before he set up the Psychopharmacology unit at Bristol University in 1988, where he later became Prof of Psychopharmacology and Dean of Clinical Medicine before moving to Imperial College London in 2008. He has held presidencies of the EBC, BAP, BNA and ECNP, was chair of the ACMD and founded the charity DrugScience and now chairs PAREA the European association for access to research with psychedelics.

David’s contributions to pharmacology include GABA and noradrenaline receptor function in anxiety disorders, serotonin function in depression, endorphin and dopamine function in addiction and most recently the neuroscience and clinical utility of psychedelics. He has over 600 original research papers, a similar number of reviews/book chapters, eight government reports and 40 books. In 2013 he was awarded the John Maddox Prize from Nature/Sense about Science for standing up for science and in 2017 a Doctor of Laws hon causa from the University of Bath.

Barbara J. Sahakian

Professor Barbara J Sahakian is based at the University of Cambridge Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute. Sahakian is also an Honorary Clinical Psychologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and a Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Academy of Medical Sciences. In 2024, she was awarded a CBE by His Majesty King Charles III for Services to Research in Human Cognitive Processes. She was a Member of the International Expert Jury for the 2017 Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung Prize. She is a Past President of the British Association for Psychopharmacology (BAP) and of the International Neuroethics Society. In 2010 she received the Senior Investigator Award from the International College of Geriatric Psychoneuropharmacology, in 2016 she received the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology Ethics Prize and in 2021 she received the BAP Lifetime Achievement Award. According to Research.com she is one of the very top researchers worldwide in the fields of neuroscience and psychology. Sahakian has an international reputation in the fields of psychopharmacology, neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry, neuroimaging and neuroethics. She is best known for her work on problems of cognition and motivation in brain injury, ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ cognitive deficits in depression and early detection and early treatment with cholinesterase inhibitors in Alzheimer’s disease. She has published on cognitive reserve and resilience across the lifespan. She has over 600 publications in high impact scientific journals. Google Scholar credits her with a Hirsch (h) index of 173 and an i10-index of 592. Sahakian co-invented the neuropsychological CANTAB, which is now used in over 1000 institutes, universities and hospitals in over 100 countries, and EMOTICOM tests (www.cambridgecognition.com) as well as the University of Cambridge/PEAK Advanced Training Programme and the Wizard Apprentice Memory Game (www.peak.net). Sahakian has contributed to Neuroscience and Mental Health Policy, including the UK Government Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Wellbeing (Beddington et al., 2008, Nature), the Strategy for Mental Health for the Medical Research Council (Sahakian et al., 2010, The Lancet) and the Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health (Collins et al., 2011, Nature). She was a member of the Institute of Medicine Planning Committee (USA) on Enabling Discovery, Development, and Translation of Treatments for Cognitive Dysfunction in Depression. She was on the Committee for the Strategy for Neuroscience and Mental Health for the Department of Health. In March 2017, she participated in the Global Council on Brain Health meeting in Washington, DC. She has spoken at the World Economic Forum, Davos, 2014 and is a member of the WEF on the Future of Neurotechnologies and Brain Science. She was also on the Clinical Advisory Board of the Human Brain Project. She was a member of the Wellcome Trust Science Innovation Translation Programme Advisory Group, and the Wellcome’s Innovator Awards Advisory Group. She was recently the Academic Committee Member for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Guidelines on "Harmful Gambling: Identification, Assessment and Management", published in 2025. She was a member of the Irish ResearchCouncil Laureate Awards Committee. She is the co-author of the books Bad Moves: How decision-making goes wrong and the ethics of smart drugs (2013); Sex, Lies & Brain Scans: How fMRI reveals what really goes on in our minds (2017) which was been awarded the British Psychological Society Popular Science Award and Brain Boost: Healthy habits for a happier life (2025). She regularly writes public articles for The Conversation and received the 2023 Sir Paul Curren Award in recognition. She has been a witness for the House of Lords Select Committee's Report on Science, Technology and Healthy Living (https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld5801/ldselect/ldsctech/183/18313.htm#_idTextAnchor166). She has published on the effects of COVID-19 on the brain, cognition, mental health and wellbeing in scientific and popular journals.

Thomas Insel

USA

Tom lnsel, M.D., a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, has been a national leader in mental health research, policy, and technology. From 2002-2015, Dr. Insel served as Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). More recently, he led the Mental Health Team at Verily (2015-2017) and since 2017 has co-founded five mental health start-ups (Mindstrong Health, Humanest Care, NeuraWell Therapeutics, Vanna Health, Benchmark Health). He currently serves on the boards of Fountain House and the Peterson Health Technology Institute as well as being an advisor to several mental health start-ups. He is the author of Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health (Penguin Random House, 2022). Dr. Insel is a member of theNational Academy of Medicine and has received numerous national and international awards including honorary degrees in the U.S. and Europe.
More info at www.thomasinselmd.com.

Marion Leboyer

France

Marion Leboyer, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Paris Est Créteil (UPEC) in France. She is vice-chair of the University-affiliated department of Psychiatry and Addictology (Hôpitaux Universitaires Mondor, Assistance-Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, AP-HP). She runs the laboratory “Translational NeuroPsychiatry” (http://www.imrb.inserm.fr/equipes/m-leboyer-s-jamain/) which is part of Mondor Institute for Biomedical research (IMRB, Inserm U955). Since 2007, she is the executive director of a non-profit foundation, “Fondation FondaMental” (www.fondation-fondamental.org) created by the French Ministry of Research, to support research in Psychiatry. The network of 55 expert centers created and coordinated by Fondation FondaMental, has enabled since 2010 to build several large and deeply-phenotyped cohorts of patients followed longitudinally, allowing the construction of shared observational databases and biobanks (FondaMental Advanced Centers of Expertise, FACE). These networks have enabled multiple collaborations within different national and international research programs. Dr Leboyer is the principal investigator of several international and national research projects, including the French Program in Precision Psychiatry funded in 2022 by France 2030.

Dr. Leboyer has authored or co-authored more than 1000 peer-reviewed international publications (H-index = 127) and is part of the highly cited researchers (Clarivate) since 2018. She received the Inserm Grand Prize https://presse.inserm.fr/en/inserm-2021-prizes-science-more-mobilized-than-ever-to-serve-health/44300/ She is general secretary of the ECNP (European college of Neuropsychopharmacology) and vice-president of the Immuno-psychiatry network of the ECNP.

Her research efforts contributed to a better identification of genetic and environmental risk factors associated with major psychiatric disorders towards better understanding of causal mechanisms. In particular, she has contributed to the identification of associations of genetic vulnerability factors, of immune dysfunctions in major mood and psychotic disorders, but also of environmental risk factors, as well as brain imaging abnormalities. Her goal is to pave the way towards precision psychiatry (Cevoli et al, 2026, Kas et al, 2025) by identification of biomarkers signatures to enrich our current categorical diagnosis towards the development of mechanisms-based treatments. She has contributed to the discovery of the consequence of low-grade inflammation on auto-immune psychosis (Jezequel et al, 2017), on activation of Human Endogenous Retrovirus (Tamouza et al, 2021), on gut brain abnormalities and on mitochondria abnormalities associated with metabolic syndrome (Godin et al, 2014, Bernard et al, 2024, Zachos et al, 2024).

Ole Andreassen

Norway

Professor in psychiatry at University of Oslo, and Director of Centre for Precision Psychiatry. Andreassen did his PhD in psychopharmacology at University of Bergen and post doc training in molecular neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He did his psychiatry residency at Oslo University Hospital and is now attending psychiatrist at the Bipolar Disorder Clinic.
Andreassen’s research program builds on transdisciplinary approaches, with clinical, neurocognitive, and brain imaging phenotypes and molecular genetics tools to identify causes and underlying pathophysiology of mental and neuropsychiatric disorders, and develop multimodal prediction and stratification tools with AI-technology. He chairs international consortia in bipolar disorder genetics (Psychiatric Genetics Consortium) and brain imaging (ENIGMA) and coordinates large European Horizon projects. He is an active researcher with high number of publications, and is highly cited. He has received several awards, most recently the Colvin Prize from BBRF.