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NEW
YORK CITY --The Brain
& Behavior Research Foundation honored Herbert
Pardes, M.D., President
of the Foundation’s Scientific Council and Executive Vice
Chair of the Board of Trustees at NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital, with its inaugural Humanitarian
Prize, presented by Mehmet
C. Oz, M.D., at
its 27th Annual
National Awards Dinner at the Pierre Hotel. Over 350 people
attended the event, which raised more than $1 million.
The Foundation raises funds to invest in cutting-edge
research projects to understand, treat, and ultimately
prevent and cure mental illness. Since 1987, it has awarded
over $320 million in
NARSAD Research Grants to more than 3,800 scientists around
the world. Funded through private contributions; the
Foundation invests 100% of donor contributions for research
directly into its NARSAD
Grants.
Dr. Pardes, a noted psychiatrist, and
outspoken advocate for the mentally ill, is
the first recipient of the Humanitarian Prize, which will
bear his name and honor individuals who have made
significant contributions to the field of mental health
through education, prevention, treatment, research, health
policy, administration, clinical care, mentoring and
advocacy.
Dr. Pardes is a champion
of empathic, humanistic and patient-centered health care,
who believes in the power of technology and innovation to
dramatically improve 21st-century medicine.
The dinner also honored winners of the Foundation’s 2014 Outstanding
Achievement Prizes, including the
Lieber Prize (Schizophrenia
Research); the
Colvin Prize (Mood
Disorders Research); the
Ruane Prize (Child
& Adolescent Research); the
Goldman-Rakic Prize (Cognitive
Neuroscience); and the
Sidney R. Baer Jr. Prize (Innovative
and Promising Schizophrenia Research).
“We
are proud to bestow our inaugural Humanitarian Prize to Dr.
Pardes for a lifetime of achievement in the field of mental
health, including his contributions as the
founding president of the Scientific Council,” said Jeffrey
Borenstein, M.D., the
Foundation’s President and CEO, who added that the
organization is in the process of assembling an endowment
for the prize. “Dr. Pardes sets the standard and
exemplifies the qualities we will look for in future
recipients.”
“It is a great honor to present the inaugural
Humanitarian Prize to my dear friend Herb Pardes,” said Dr.
Oz, host of The
Dr. Oz Show, Vice-Chair
and Professor of Surgery at Columbia University, and
Director of the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary
Medicine Program at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. “As a
clinician, administrator, humanist, pioneer and champion of
innovative research, Dr. Pardes has helped the public
understand the connection between mind and body, the role
mental health plays in physical well-being, and has
tirelessly worked to eliminate the stigma of mental illness.
He is a role model for every physician and scientist.”
“I am deeply moved by this tremendous honor from
the Foundation’s Board of Directors, a group for which I
have great esteem and affection,” said Dr. Pardes, accepting
the award. “Eradicating mental illness has been something
I’ve worked toward my entire career, and we’ve made great
strides in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.
But much remains to be done. We must ensure that the
Foundation continues to support the work of innovative
scientists to discover the root cause of these conditions so
they can be treated more effectively and, ultimately, be
prevented or cured.”
“It is hard to find an example of someone who
has done more to ‘confer the greatest benefit on mankind’ in
the words of Alfred
Nobel, than Dr. Pardes,” said Stephen
A. Lieber, Chair
of the Foundation’s Board of Directors, who along with his
wife Constance
E. Lieber, has been involved in the Foundation, along
with Dr. Pardes, since the 1980s. “Dr. Pardes had the vision
and the remarkable administrative skills to launch this
organization and, as the President of the Scientific
Council, he has led our efforts to fund transformative
research to improve the lives of the millions of people
suffering from mental illness ever since.”
Guests in attendance at this year’s National Awards Dinner
included Robert
and Suzanne Wright; Nobel Laureate Dr. Eric Kandel; Susan
Lasker Brody; Dr. Richard and Ellen Levine; Dr. Kay Jamison
and Dr. Thomas Traill; Dr. Nancy Wexler; Anne and Ronald
Abramson; Suzanne and John Golden; J. Anthony and Raymonde
Boeckh;
Dr. Mark and Virginia Silver; Dr. Jack Barchas; Ilana Goor
and Leonard Lowengrub; and Deidre
Hess.
The Foundation’s 2014 Outstanding Achievement Prizewinners
were selected by the Foundation’s Scientific
Council,
which comprises 150
leading experts across disciplines in brain and behavior
research, including two Nobel Prizewinners; four former
directors of the NIMH; 13 members of the National Academy of
Sciences; 21 chairs of Psychiatry and Neuroscience
Departments at leading medical institutions; and 47 members
of the Institute of Medicine
They include Lieber Prize Winners David
Braff, M.D., University
of California - San Diego School of Medicine and Patrick
F. Sullivan, M.D., FRANZCP,
Karolinska Institutet and University of North Carolina;
Colvin Prize WinnersWayne
C. Drevets, M.D., Janssen
Research & Development, of Johnson & Johnson, Inc. and Fritz
A. Henn, M.D., Ph.D., Cold
Spring Harbor Laboratory and the Icahn School of Medicine at
Mount Sinai; Ruane Prize winner Anita
Thapar M.D., Ph.D., Cardiff
University School of Medicine; Goldman-Rakic Prize Winner Richard
L. Huganir, Ph.D., Johns
Hopkins University School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins
Medicine Brain Science Institute, and
Sidney R. Baer, Jr. Prize winners Gregory
A. Light, Ph.D., University of California - San Diego
and Stephan
Ripke, M.D., Psychiatric
Genomics Consortium (PGC), of the Broad Institute and
Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin.
About the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation
The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation raises funds to
invest in cutting-edge research projects to understand,
treat, and ultimately prevent and cure mental illness. Since
1987, the Foundation has awarded
over $320 million in
NARSAD Research Grants to more than 3,800 scientists around
the world. Funded through private contributions, the
Foundation invests 100% of donor contributions for research
directly into its NARSAD
Grants.
For more information, visit.
www.bbrfoundation.org
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