Dr. Siegfried Kasper

Dr Siegfried Kasper is Professor of Psychiatry and Chairman of the Department of General Psychiatry at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. Born in Salzburg, Austria, he was educated at the medical schools of the University of Innsbruck, Austria and the Universities of Freiburg and Heidelberg, Germany. Dr Kasper gained clinical and research experience in psychiatry at the Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany, the Psychiatric Department of the University of Heidelberg, Germany, the Clinical Psychobiology Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland/USA, and the Psychiatric Department of the University of Bonn, Germany; in neurology at the Neurological Department of the University of Heidelberg in Mannheim; and psychotherapeutic and psychoanalytic training at the Ausbildungsinstitut für Psychotherapie und Psychoanalyse in Heidelberg/Mannheim, Germany.

Dr Kasper has authored over 800 research reports and reviews. He concentrates on the biological bases of mental disorders and their possible treatment approaches. Furthermore, he has conducted studies in psychopathological as well as clinical areas. Dr Kasper is a frequent national and international speaker and continues to be actively involved in research programmes studying depression, anxiety, psychosis, and dementia.

Dr Kasper serves on the executive committees and advisory boards of several national and international societies, such as the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) and the Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum (CINP). He is president of the Austrian Society of Drug Safety in Psychiatry (ÖAMSP) and past-president of the Austrian Society of Neuropsychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry (ÖGPB). Furthermore, he is an honorary member of the Czech and Romanian Societies of Neuropsychopharmacology and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK, as well as of the Ukrainian Association of Psychiatry. In 1997, he was the president of the 10th ECNP Congress, was the chairman of the local organizing committee of the WPA Thematic Conference in 2004 and is the co-chair of the local organizing committee of the WFSBP Congress 2005 in Vienna. Furthermore, he has recently been appointed honorary professor at the University of Hong Kong, China.

Dr Kasper serves on the editorial boards of numerous learned journals, including European Archives of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, European Psychiatry, and European Neuropsychopharmacology. He is co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice.

As a result of his research expertise he is involved in projects of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and is also an adviser to the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (EMEA).

Dr Siegfried Kasper was elected WFSBP President in July 2005.