Dennis S. Charney is an American biological psychiatrist and researcher, with expertise in the neurobiology and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders. He is the author of Neurobiology of Mental Illness, The Physician's Guide to Depression and Bipolar Disorders and Molecular Biology for the Clinician, as well as the author of over 600 original papers and chapters. In 2022, he was listed #49 on Research.com's "Top Medicine Scientists in the United States," with an h-index of 218 with 173,960 citations across 887 publications. Charney is known for demonstrating that ketamine is effective for treating depression. Ketamine's use as a rapidly-acting anti-depressant is recognized as a breakthrough treatment in mental illness. He is a professor of psychiatry, professor of neuroscience and professor of pharmacology and systems therapeutics at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. In 2007, he became the Dean of the School and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs of what was then known as the Mount Sinai Medical Center. In 2013, he was named President of Academic Affairs for the Mount Sinai Health System and as of 2024 still holds these roles. With Steven Southwick, MD, Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University, Charney authored Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges, which reflects on the science of resilience and identifies ten factors that contribute to highly reliant people. With Eric J. Nestler, MD, he is author of Charney & Nestler's Neurobiology of Mental Illness , which went into its fifth edition in 2018.

Biography

Education and career

Charney graduated from medical school at Penn State in 1977 and completed his residency in Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. A fellowship in Biological Psychiatry was completed at the Connecticut Medical Health Center. Charney became the dean of research at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 2004, later becoming the dean for academic and scientific affairs, then succeeding Kenneth L. Davis as dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2007. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2000. Charney led the Mood and Anxiety Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health and earlier was on the faculty in the department of psychiatry at Yale Medical School.

Research

According to published works, Charney's research is centered around various fields such as psychiatry, anesthesia, clinical psychology, and major depressive disorder. In recognition of his significant contributions to new treatments for mood and anxiety disorders, including the use of ketamine for resistant depression, Charney received the Donald Klein Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society for Psychopharmacology in 2023.

Ketamine treatment development

Neuron published that Charney's neurobiological insights into ketamine are a novel approach to the underlying operation of mechanism-of-action for rapid-acting antidepressant efficacy and mood disorders and is the first model of a rapid-acting antidepressant with efficacy for treatment-resistant symptoms of mood disorders. His intranasal ketamine treatment was approved by the FDA in 2019 and now produced under the brand name Spravato. Scientific American published in 2018 that the development is the first new form of antidepressant since the 1950s.

General

General psychiatry research includes work on anxiety, mood and psychopathology linked to work in injury prevention, thereby connecting myriad disciplines of study. Research into depression shows elements of internal medicine and management. Clinical psychology includes psychological intervention and resilience. Research shows themes of randomized controlled trials and Esketamine. Traumatic stress, anxiety and neuroscience is part of his psychology study and is frequently connected to suicide prevention, bridging the gap between various science disciplines and establishing new relationships. Other areas of study are bipolar disorder, endocrinology and oncology. Charney's research on digital mental health research contributed to the development of Rejoyn, the first FDA-approved prescription digital therapeutic for major depressive disorder (MDD). The treatment is designed to be used alongside standard care and medication to help reduce MDD symptoms.

Patents

Charney owns patents in dopamine and noradrenergic reuptake inhibitors in the treatment of schizophrenia and in intranasal administration of ketamine to treat depression. In total, as of 2022, he holds nine issued patents and five pending.

Affiliations and positions

Awards and honors

Partial list:

Personal life

Charney is the father of five children and grandfather of eight. On the morning of August 29, 2016, Charney was shot and wounded by Hengjun Chao, as Charney left Lange's Deli in Charney's hometown of Chappaqua, New York. Chao was a former Mount Sinai medical researcher who had been fired by Charney in 2010 for research fraud. Chao's trial began on June 5, 2017, and eight days later Chao was convicted of attempted second-degree murder and two other charges in Westchester County Court in White Plains. He was sentenced to 28 years in prison. These personal events contributed first-hand to his study of resilience and are discussed in this his book "Resilience".

Litigation

In April 2019, a lawsuit was filed against Dr. Charney, several other defendants, and the Mount Sinai Health System for sex and age discrimination at the Arnhold Institute for Global Health at the Icahn School of Medicine. The suit was filed by eight current and former employees, all but one women.

Books and publications

He has been named among the top 3 most highly cited authors of psychiatric research in the decade ending in 2000 by the Institute for Scientific Information. He has been on the editorial board of 15 journals, including Biological Psychiatry, Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Journal of Affective Disorders, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavia, Journal of Psychopharmacology, Human Psychopharmacology, and Psychopharmacology Bulletin.

Books

Publications

Charney's most cited publications are: Other notable articles: