People

Dr Robin Carhart-Harris - Director & Head of Centre

Dr Robin Carhart-Harris moved to Imperial College London in 2008 after obtaining a PhD in Psychopharmacology from the University of Bristol and an MA in Psychoanalysis from Brunel University. At Imperial, he has designed and/or carried out human brain imaging studies with a variety of psychedelic compounds, plus a clinical trial of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, and a current study comparing psilocybin with escitalopram for major depressive disorder.

In 2019, he set up the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London, thanks to the generous support of its founders.

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Professor David Nutt - Deputy Head of Centre

Professor David Nutt is currently the Edmond J. Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences. Professor Nutt broadcasts widely to the general public both on radio and television including BBC science and public affairs programmes on therapeutic as well as illicit drugs, their harms and their classification.

He also lectures widely to the public as well as to the scientific and medical communities. In 2010 The Times Eureka science magazine included him in the 100 most important figures in British Science, and the only psychiatrist.

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Dr David Erritzoe - Clinical Director of Centre

Dr David Erritzoe holds a NIHR Academic Clinical Lectureship in Psychiatry at Imperial College London. Alongside his clinical work in medicine/psychiatry, David conducts psychopharmacological research, using brain-imaging techniques such as PET and MRI. He was trained in PET imaging at Columbia University in New York and later undertook a PhD at University Hospital Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen. Since 2009 he has been involved in post-doc imaging research in the neurobiology of addictions and major depression at Imperial, and together with Prof Nutt and Dr Carhart-Harris he investigates mechanisms and therapeutic potential of MDMA and classic psychedelics.

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