The Wayne State University Department of Pharmacology and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences will present “Repurposing Abused Drugs for Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders,” a symposium to honor the career of Eugene Schoener, Ph.D., emeritus professor of WSU Pharmacology, on July 17.
Dr. Schoener trained in the neurosciences and pharmacology at Rutgers University and Columbia University
College of Physicians and Surgeons. At WSU, his expertise broadened from drug mechanisms to issues of clinical intervention and public policy on substance use and mental illness. He assisted the Michigan Department of Community Health in its first efforts to integrate care for persons with cooccurring substance use and other psychiatric disorders.
As director of the WSU Addiction Research Institute for more than 15 years, Dr. Schoener engaged in a wide array of research, service and training activities, including novel clinical interventions, implementation of a juvenile drug court, evaluation of treatment and prevention programs, and faculty development in substance abuse. While he regularly trained graduate and medical students, residents, fellows and community clinicians, he also co-directed an undergraduate honors program sponsored by the National Institute on Mental Health, created a graduate certificate program in alcohol and drug abuse studies, conducted a training program for community mental health clinicians, and directed three successive faculty development programs.
Dr. Schoener was a member of local, state, national and international panels on mental health and addiction. He chaired Research Advisory Committees for the state of Michigan and Detroit-Wayne County. He served three terms as president of the Michigan Coalition on Substance Abuse, was vice president of the Association for Medical Education and Research on Substance Abuse, served on the World Health Organization Expert Panel on prescribing practices, and on the Advisory Council of the Johnson Institute Foundation.
The symposium will take place in the Margherio Family Conference Center in Scott Hall, on the WSU School of Medicine campus.
The agenda for the day includes:
8 to 8:45 a.m.: Registration and continental breakfast.
8:45 to 9 a.m.: Welcome and opening remarks, Stephen Lanier, Ph.D., vice president of Research for Wayne State University.
9 to 10 a.m.: John Krystal, M.D., the Robert L. McNeil Jr. Professor of Translational Research and professor of Psychiatry and of Neuroscience and chair of Psychiatry at Yale-New Haven, hospital director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Center for the Translational Neuroscience of Alcoholism, and director of the Clinical Neuroscience Division of the VA National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, “Ketamine: The Prototype for Rapid-Action Antidepressants.”
10 to 10:30 a.m.: Discussion among invited presenters and with the audience, moderator Richard Balon, M.D., WSU professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, and of Anesthesiology.
10:30 to 11 a.m.: Coffee/tea break.
11 a.m. to noon: Matthew Johnson, Ph.D., associate professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, “Potential Therapeutic Effects of the Psychedelic Drug Psilocybin.”
Noon to 12:30 p.m.: Discussion among invited presenters and with the audience, moderator Mark Greenwald, Ph.D., WSU professor and associate chair for Research of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences.
12:30 to 2 p.m.: Luncheon (students, residents and fellows with speakers).
2 to 2:30 p.m.: Kwaku Nantwi, Ph.D., associate professor of Ophthalmology, Visual and Anatomical Sciences, program honoring Eugene Schoener, Ph.D., WSU professor emeritus of Pharmacology and of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences.
2:30 to 3:30 p.m.: Mohini Ranganathan, M.B.B.S., associate professor of Psychiatry at Yale University, “Therapeutic Potential of Cannabinoids: Focus on Cannabidiol.”
3:30 to 4 p.m.: Discussion among invited presenters and with the audience, moderator, Michael Bannon, Ph.D., WSU professor of Pharmacology.
4 to 4:30 p.m.: Eugene Schoener, Ph.D., concluding remarks.
Please register by July 8. For more information, contact Delana Knighton at 313-577-1580 or dknight@med.wayne.edu.