Professor Zoltán Sarnyai, M.D., Ph.D.
Prof Zoltán Sarnyai is a medically-trained PhD neuroscientist with an active research program in the neurobiological mechanisms of stress and psychiatric disorders, including drug addiction, schizophrenia and depression. He is a Professor at James Cook University and Director of the Margaret Roderick Centre for Mental Health Research at James Cook University.
Prof. Sarnyai was previously University Lecturer in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College, where he was Director of Studies for Medicine. He trained at McLean Hospital at Harvard Medical School and at The Rockefeller University, supported by the DuPont-Warren Award and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, respectively.
His group described the role of stress neuropeptides oxytocin and corticotropin-releasing factor in addiction, for which he was awarded the Richter Prize by the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology and the efficacy of ketogenic diet in preclinical models of schizophrenia.
Prof Sarnyai’s research has been focusing on the neurobiological mechanisms of stress and psychiatric disorders, including drug addiction, schizophrenia and depression. He obtained his M.D. and PhD in Neuroscience from University of Szeged, Hungary. He conducted post-doctoral work on stress and addiction in primates at Harvard Medical School at the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Center/McLean Hospital. He then joined the Rockefeller University as an independent investigator (Research Associate), working jointly in the Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology and in the Laboratory of Biology of Addictive Diseases. In 1999 Sarnyai joined the start-up behavioural neuroscience-based biotechnology company, PsychoGenics Inc. as Director of Neurobiology and later assumed the role of Vice President. Before joining JCU in 2012 he was a University Lecturer in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge where he served as Director of Studies for Medicine. He was awarded the Curt P. Richter Prize by the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology for his work on neuropeptides and brain function and was a recipient of the prestigious Du Pont Warren Fellowship from Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a Young Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD).
