Research Interests:
Professor Crawford has been the Director of the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition since 1990. Having worked in the East-end of London on maternal nutrition and health with Newham, the Homerton and Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children, he is now at Reproductive Physiology at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Campus of Imperial College, London. His special interest lies is in the role that lipids and essential fatty acids play in interacting with the cellular signaling systems, i.e. the key interaction between nutrition affecting membrane lipids and gene expression.
He has published over 300 peer reviewed papers and 3 books. Amongst his several honours and prizes, he was elected by his peers to the Hall of Fame at the Royal Society of Medicine in 2010. He collaborates in research internationally and is much in demand as a lecturer worldwide.
From 1960-65 Professor Crawford was at the Makerere Medical School in Kampala, Uganda, during which time he studied the nutritional factors linked to endomyocardial fibrosis, which was common there. He also offered a nutritional explanation as to why the incidence of bladder cancer was different in different parts of East Africa. In 1963 he was one of the founders of the Medical College at Muhimbili Hospital in Dar-es-Salaam. He retained his research group at Makerere until 1972, when the position became impossible.
At the Nuffield Institute of Comparative Medicine (1965-89) Professor Crawford equipped and computerised his laboratory to engage in lipid nutrition and showed that deprivation of the essential fatty acids used for the brain’s structure and function resulted in loss of brain cell number in the third generation. In 1972 Crawford and Sinclair published the first description of the dependence of the brain on arachidonic and docosahexaenoic acids and drew attention to the evolutionary implications. Crawford also demonstrated clear evidence of maternal nutrition being a causative factor in low birthweight and complications or prematurity.
Having reported evidence that the brain required arachidonic and docosahexaenoic acid specifically, for its growth, structure and function in 1972, his work has focused first on testing the evidence, the specificity and the requirement. Attention is now directed on establishing (i) the biological reason for the uniqueness of docosahexaenoic acid in neural signaling systems which stretched unchanged over the 500- 600 million years of evolution and (ii) the application of this knowledge to the prevention and treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders.
Recent Honours:
Professor Crawford has been awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, October 2015, Tokyo, Japan and the CHEVREUL medal in 2015 for his outstanding contribution to the identification of DHA as an important determinant in the evolution of the human brain and its fundamental role in brain growth and development. He was elected as Freeman of the City of London, 11th May 2017.
For more details of Michaels work, and his tireless campaign to improve mental health and wellbeing by improving nutrition of the mother, see The Mother and Child Foundation
Prof. Cryan’s current research is focused on understanding the interaction between brain, gut & microbiome and how it applies to stress, psychiatric and immune-related disorders at key time-windows across the lifespan. Prof. Cryan has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He is a Senior Editor of Neuropharmacology and of Nutritional Neuroscience and an Editor of British Journal of Pharmacology. He is on the editorial board of a further 15 journals. He has edited three books including Microbial Endocrinology: The Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis in Health and Disease (Springer Press, 2014). He has received numerous awards including UCC Researcher of the Year in 2012; the University of Utrecht Award for Excellence in Pharmaceutical Research in 2013 and being named on the Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher list in 2014. He was a TEDMED speaker in Washington in 2014 and spoke at WIRED Health in London in 2015. He is President-elect of the European Behavioural Pharmacology Society.
Dr. Freeman completed medical school at Northwestern University Medical School. She completed residency at the Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Program and a research fellowship in the Biological Psychiatry Program at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Her research and clinical expertise is in the areas of mood disorders and women’s mental health.
She is Vice Editor-in-Chief for The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. She was a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and chaired the APA Task Force on Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and was a member of the APA’s workgroup on Major Depressive Disorder treatment guidelines. She is on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology (ASCP) and is a Member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP). She recently served as a Member of the Veterans Administration Reproductive Mental Health Steering Committee.
CAPT Hibbeln, M.D. is internationally recognized for originating the field of omega-3 fatty acids in depression and impulsive disorders. The 20th century dramatically changed the dietary oils that comprise the brain creating deficiencies in marine long chain omega-3 fatty acids and excesses in vegetable oil omega-6 fatty acids. Under his direction, the Section on Nutritional Neurosciences examines the impact these deficiencies and excesses on adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes and risks for major depression, suicide, addictive and pain disorders. SNN comprehensively integrates data from epidemiological, nutrigenomic, basic and clinical science perspectives to best formulate actionable interventions that will improve public health. SNN seeks to determine if resuming historically normal intakes of these essential fats might substantially reduce emotional distress in modern societies, with a specific focus on Military and Veteran mental health.
CAPT Hibbeln’s work establishing the net nutritional benefits of fish consumption over risks of trace mercury exposure in pregnancy (Lancet 2007) has changed in international policy regarding dietary advice: (World Health Organization 2010, US Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010 and 2015, FDA-Net Effects Document/draft advice, 2014, European Food Standards Agency, 2014). His team recovered and published missing data from two of the largest RCTs ever conducted for omega-6 fats in cardiovascular disease (2013, 2016). Both studies demonstrated increased cardiovascular mortality resulting from lower serum cholesterol with linoleic acid from vegetable oil sources.
CAPT Hibbeln is the recipient of numerous awards including the Wilhelm Normann Metal in 2012. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific papers and has received more than 35 grants or awards for research funding and continuous funding since 1998 in the Intramural Program of NIAAA. He is board certified physician in psychiatry, serves in the United States Public Health Service (USPHS) and is an Eagle Scout, BSA.
During and since her PhD, conferred in 2009, Professor Jacka has pioneered a highly innovative program of research that examines how individuals’ diets, and other lifestyle behaviours, interact with the risk for mental health problems. This research is being carried out with the ultimate goal of developing an evidence-based public health message for the primary prevention of the common mental disorders. She has published >115 peer-reviewed papers, the majority in high-impact journals in the mental health field including the American Journal of Psychiatry, World Psychiatry, BMC Medicine, Schizophrenia Bulletin and Lancet Psychiatry. Profressor Jacka has been awarded >AU$892k in Australian and international awards, prizes and Fellowships and more than one million dollars in research grant funding as lead investigator since 2013. In addition to other epidemiological studies, she currently leads the first RCT to examine the impact of dietary improvement in patients with major depression.
With a commitment to the scientific exploration of biopsychosocial influences in health, and a 14-year history of writing academic articles co-authored by university-based physicians and scientists, his background is such that collaboration is the rule, not the exception. Alan has been published in over 2-dozen diverse scientific/medical journals, ranging from Aquatic Biosystems and Beneficial Microbes, to Lancet Psychiatry and Pathophysiology. His focus has been on nutrition, microbiota, and natural environments, particularly as they pertain to mental health. He is co-author of Your Brain on Nature (Harper Collins, 2012).
Her interests and expertise are focused around early life risk factors for inflammation as an antecedent (and preventive target) for a broad range of noncommunicable diseases (NCD), with a particular interest in early onset NCDs such as allergic disease. She works at the highest international level of her field, and is a former Director of the World Allergy Organisation.
Prof Prescott is founding President of the multidisciplinary ‘DOHaD’ Society in Australia and New Zealand (Developmental Origins of Health and Disease). She also founded and continues to chair the International Inflammation Network (‘in-FLAME’), an interdisciplinary research network with over 200 members from more than 50 partner institutions.
She has over 250 scientific publications, and is also author of several books: The Allergy Epidemic – a Mystery of Modern Life, The Calling, and Origins – Early Life Solutions to the Modern Health Crisis, and most recently The Secret Life of Your Microbiome: Why Nature and Biodiversity are Essential to Health and Happiness.
Her 90+ publications include pioneering clinical trials of omega-3 for ADHD, dyslexia and related conditions. She teaches and lectures widely on nutritional neuroscience, psychology and psychiatry, and is a frequent media contributor.
Professor Sarris has over 120 publications and has published in many eminent journals in the field including The American Journal of Psychiatry, Lancet Psychiatry, and World Psychiatry. He is currently involved in over a dozen clinical trials in the area of mental health, being Chief Investigator A on 3 multicentre NHMRC Project Grants in the field. Jerome is a founding Vice Chair of The International Network of Integrative Mental Health & an Executive Committee Member of the International Society of Nutritional Psychiatry Research.
He has received prestigious research awards from professional societies, including Professor Robert Kerwin International Award from the British Association for Psychopharmacology (UK, 2008), the NARSAD Young Investigator Award (USA, 2008-2010), the International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids (ISSFAL) New Investigator Award (2010 & 2012), the National Science Council Ta-You Wu Memorial Award (2011), GlaxoSmithKline Depression and Anxiety Award (2011), Thomson Reuters Research Front Awards (2011), Pacific Rim Psychiatrist College Young Psychiatrists Award (2012), Psychopharmacology Award from the British Association for Psychopharmacology (2013) and (ISSFAL) Early Career Award (2016). In the future, Prof Su will keep looking for the novel remedy for depression and the understanding to interface for mind and body.
Professor Visser is the coordinator of two large EU consortia: MooDFOOD, focusing on the role of nutrition in the prevention of depression, and PROMISS, focusing on the prevention of malnutrition in older adults. She has authored over 230 scientific publications (H-index 70) and serves on the editorial boards of several international scientific journals.
Dr. Mischoulon’s research has focused on various areas of depression, including complementary and alternative medicine. He is also an accredited medical acupuncturist and has carried out studies of acupuncture as a treatment for depression. He has received two NARSAD Young Investigator awards, a K-23 award from NCCAM, an R01 grant from the NIH to study omega-3 fatty acids for depression, and recently a UG3 from NCCIH to continue his work on omega-3 fatty acids for depression. Dr. Mischoulon has mentored many research fellows and junior faculty, including investigators from Europe, Asia, and Australia, who have gone on to obtain independent funding as principal investigators.
Julia investigates the role of micronutrients in the expression and treatment of psychiatric symptoms, including ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, and anxiety, stress and PTSD associated with the Canterbury earthquakes
Dr. Ramsey frequently speaks and conducts workshops nationally on nutrition and mental health, including two TEDx talks BrainFork and Brain Farmacy. His work and writing have been featured by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, Lancet Psychiatry, and NPR, which named him a “kale evangelist.” He is the author of Eat Complete (HarperWave 2016), 50 Shades of Kale (Harperwave 2013) and The Happiness Diet (Rodale 2011).