Position
Section Head - Neurogenetics; Director - Neuroscience
Phone 416-535-8501 Ext. 4987
Email james_kennedy@camh.net
Dr. Kennedy was trained in psychology and biology as an undergraduate at York University in Toronto, and then completed a Master of Science degree at York in neurochemistry. Following this he attended medical school in Calgary, Alberta, Canada then went to Yale University for specialty training in psychiatry. After completing his psychiatry residency in 1989, he engaged in postdoctoral research in the Department of Human Genetics at Yale, until 1991. He then returned to his native Canada to take the position of Head, Section of Neurogenetics, at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. He is also IAnson Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Director of the Department of Neuroscience Research at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, and a member of numerous professional societies including the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, American Society of Human Genetics, National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorder, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Canada. He is co-organizer of the annual Pharmacogenetics in Psychiatry conference, held in New York city, now in its fourth year.
Dr. Kennedy has published more than 250 scientific articles, and he is an active lecturer at numerous international conferences. His research program is dedicated to finding genes involved in the cause of mental illness. He has published pioneering findings relating gene variants in the dopamine, serotonin, and neurodevelopment systems to psychiatric disorders, and to treatment response. He has also led important investigations of unstable DNA mutation in mental illness. He has three patents awarded and three patents submitted, in the areas of genetic prediction of disease risk, medication response, and side effects. Dr. Kennedy has been mentor to over 25 postdoctoral fellows, 10 graduate students, and numerous other undergraduate students. In aggregate, his trainees have been awarded more than $1,000,000 in competitive fellowships or studentships, and many have progressed to hold senior scientific positions in academic and industrial settings. He also holds a prestigious $300,000 Ciba-Geigy award for lifetime mentoring in molecular genetics.
Currently he is applying molecular genetic technology to the study of schizophrenia, childhood depression, manic depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, addictions, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In addition, he is investigating genetic factors that may predict response and side effects to psychiatric medications (pharmacogenetics). A more recent area of interest is the integration of molecular genetics and neuroimaging as a combination approach to better understand brain structure and function.