Jerrold F. Rosenbaum, MD

Until 2019 and for 20 years, Dr. Rosenbaum, Stanley Cobb Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, chaired the MGH Department of Psychiatry. At MGH he is past Chair of the Executive Committee on Research. 2007 recipient of the C. Charles Burlingame Award for lifetime achievement in Psychiatry, he was the 2016 recipient of the Joseph B. Martin Dean's Leadership Award for the Advancement of Women Faculty for Harvard Medical School. Emeritus Fellow of the ACNP, he is a 2018 Ellis Island Medal of Honor awardee. Past President/Board Chair of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), he served as Chair of the Scientific Council, President and Board member of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. He served a 6-year term as Trustee of the Massachusetts General Hospital, 3 years as Trustee of the Partners Healthcare System, and is now a co-chair of Development at MGH. Co-author of more than 400 original articles and reviews, and editor of 20 books, he led longitudinal studies of children at risk for anxiety disorders and depression. His current academic focus is as founding director of the MGH Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics (CNP). Dr. Rosenbaum graduated in 1969 from Yale College and 1973 from Yale Medical School and trained in Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School.

Disclosures:

Co-founder, BOD: Psy Therapeutics, Sensorium Therapeutics, Entheos Labs

Sharmin Ghaznavi, MD, PhD

Sharmin Ghaznavi, MD, PhD, is the Associate Director and the Director of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics at Massachusetts General Hospital. She also serves as a psychiatrist at the MGH Dauten Family Center for Bipolar Treatment Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Ghaznavi’s research interests are on the neural correlates of cognitive processes underlying mental illness.  

Dr. Ghaznavi received her undergraduate degrees in biology, brain and cognitive sciences, and philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She obtained her masters in philosophy, medical degree, and PhD in neuroscience from Yale University.  Dr. Ghaznavi completed a residency in adult psychiatry at the Mass General/McLean Psychiatry Residency Program. Her research has been supported by the Dupont-Warren and Livingston psychiatric research fellowships from Harvard Medical School, a 2012 NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, and most recently the Arielle Soussan Memorial Fund for Psychedelic Research.  She is leading the CNP's inaugural studies on psilocybin for MDD investigating potential neural mechanisms of action of psilocybin.

Disclosures: I have the following relevant financial relationships with a commercial interest to disclose.

Stock in Atai Life Sciences; Scientific Advisory Board for Sama Therapeutics; Consultant for Seaport Therapeutics; Consultant for Lightstone Ventures

Stephen Haggarty, PhD

Dr. Stephen J. Haggarty is an Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, an Associate Neuroscientist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Director of the MGH Chemical Neurobiology Laboratory, Co-Director of the MGH Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics, and Co-Director of the Precision Therapeutics Unit within the Center for Genomic Medicine. He is also a Senior Associate Member of the Broad Institute and an Affiliate Faculty Member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. 

With training in chemical biology and neuropharmacology, Dr. Haggarty’s research program operates at the interface of psychiatry and neurology, focusing on dissecting the role of neuroplasticity in health and disease using chemical biology. His efforts are guided by knowledge emerging from human genetics regarding the root causes of disease and have led to the discovery of novel chemical probes targeting the regulation of neurotrophic factor signaling, epigenetic regulation of neuronal gene expression, proteostasis networks, synaptogenesis, and BDNF/TrkB-mediated regulation of neuroplasticity, including agents advancing toward human clinical studies. To further ‘humanize’ the process of CNS drug discovery, a significant emphasis of Dr. Haggarty’s research program is the use of reprogramming technology to create patient-specific, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) as ex vivo models of neurogenetic disorders and their use for characterizing chemical probes of neuroplasticity. The ability to differentiate human iPSCs into neural networks with the capacity to form synapses and regulate genes in an activity-dependent manner provides powerful new avenues for studies of the mechanisms of neuroplasticity, for understanding the neurobiology of human disease, as well as for addressing the challenging goal of discovering novel targets and next-generation, disease-modifying therapies using the principles of precision medicine. In 2024, Dr. Haggarty and colleagues within the Mass General Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics launched the Medicinal Plant Laboratory with the goal of leveraging ethnobotanical/pharmacological knowledge to reinvigorate the investigation of the therapeutic potential of psychoactive plants.

Disclosures: My spouse/partner and I have the following relevant financial relationships with a commercial interest to disclose.

Sponsored Research Agreement; Consultant; Founder: Entheos Labs