Biography

Dr René Kahn is Professor and until 2017, was Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Head of the Division of Neurosciences at the University Medical Center, Utrecht, The Netherlands. In 1995 he received a Fulbright Scholarship for study at Yale and subsequently did a Fellowship in Biological Psychiatry at the Montefiore Hospital and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. He then moved to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine where he conducted schizophrenia research and became Unit Chief of one of the research units.

Dr Kahn has received many grants for his research into the origins and treatment of schizophrenia. His current research interests include neuroimaging in schizophrenia and the genetic dissection of complex traits in specific psychiatric disorders. He has published over 500 research papers and book chapters. He is on the editorial boards of Schizophrenia research, Schizophrenia Bulletin, Early Interventions in Psychiatry and European Neuropsychopharmacology. He was both Treasurer and Vice-President of the European College for Neuropsychopharmacology and currently is President-Elect of the Schizophrenia International Research Society. He sat on the Neuroscience andd Mental Health Board of the Medical Research Council of the UK and was on the scientific advisory group for CNS of the European Medicines Agency. He leads a large EU-funded study, OPTiMiSE, on developing a treatment algorithm in first episode schizophrenia. He is honorary lifetime professor at Jilin University in Changchun, P.R. China and a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

As of January 2017, he is appointed head of the Department of Psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. His main tasks at UMC Utrecht are now: coaching his PhD students and coordinating research projects.

Most recent key publications

1: Kahn RS, Fleischhacker WW, Boter H, Davidson M, Vergouwe Y, Keet IP, Gheorghe MD, Rybakowski JK, Galderisi S, Libiger J, Hummer M, Dollfus S, López-Ibor JJ, Hranov LG, Gaebel W, Peuskens J, Lindefors N, Riecher-Rössler A, Grobbee DE, EUFEST study group. E
2: van der Schot AC, Vonk R, Brans RG, van Haren NE, Koolschijn PC, Nuboer V, Schnack HG, van Baal GC, Boomsma DI, Nolen WA, Hulshoff Pol HE, Kahn RS. Influence of genes and environment on brain volumes in twin pairs concordant and discordant for bipolar disorder. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2009 Feb,66(2):142-51
3: van der Schot AC, Vonk R, Brouwer RM, van Baal GC, Brans RG, van Haren NE, Schnack HG, Boomsma DI, Nolen WA, Pol HE, Kahn RS. Genetic and environmental influences on focal brain density in bipolar disorder. Brain. 2010 Sep 12
4: van Haren NE, Schnack HG, Cahn W, van den Heuvel MP, Lepage C, Collins L, Evans AC, Hulshoff Pol HE, Kahn RS Changes in cortical thickness during the course of illness in schizophrenia Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2011 Sep,68(9):871-80
5: van Haren NE, Rijsdijk F, Schnack HG, Picchioni MM, Toulopoulou T, Weisbrod M, Sauer ,H, van Erp TG, Cannon TD, Huttunen MO, Boomsma DI, Hulshoff Pol HE, Murray RM, Kahn RS. The genetic and environmental determinants of the association between brain abnormalities and schizophrenia: the schizophrenia twins and relatives consortium. Biol Psychiatry. 2012 May 15,71(10):915-21