Presentation Title: Standardization of MRI Scanners

Biography: Steven G. Potkin (UC Irvine), is the Robert R. Sprague Director of the UCI Brain Imaging Center; Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior; and Director of Clinical Psychiatric Research, School of Medicine. Dr. Potkin received his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis. Trained as a psychiatrist at Duke University, Dr. Potkin spent nine years at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) as a clinical research psychiatrist before coming to UCI in 1985. Dr. Potkin's career has been devoted to understanding the causes of, and development of new treatments for, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Alzheimer's disease, and other neuropsychiatric diseases.

Dr. Potkin is the author of more than 200 peer reviewed scientific articles and book chapters. He serves on several editorial boards and is a member of numerous neuropsychiatric organizations, including the Collegium Internationale Neuropsychoparmacologicum (CINP), the largest international neuropsychopharmacology organization, as well as the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. From 1981 to 1983, he was the first US exchange scientist on the bilateral exchange of science and technology between the People's Republic of China and the United States. Dr. Potkin is the recipient of numerous awards, including the A.E. Bennett Award from the Society of Biological Psychiatry for psychiatric research; the Michtell Balter Award; the Outstanding Psychiatrist Award from the California Alliance for the Mentally Ill; and the Riley Public Service Award from the Mental Health Association of Orange County, a rare distinction for a research psychiatrist. Dr. Potkin has twice been awarded the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), the most influential family-based organization advocating for the mentally ill, in recognition of the outstanding clinical care he has provided to individuals suffering from mental illness and, most specifically, to those with schizophrenia. In addition to communicating to the general public, family members, and patients with schizophrenia, he has made many presentations to the California Legislature to educate legislators on mental illness and advocate for the needs of the mentally ill. Dr. Potkin played a key role in passing legislation which allowed treatment-resistant patients to receive new treatments and provided funding for model integrated service programs, such as the Village. He has served on numerous Task Forces, including the Lieutenant Governors' Task Force on Mental Illness (California).

Dr. Potkin has approached decreasing stigma for those suffering from mental illness in a variety of ways. His brain imaging, biological and genetic studies provide evidence that schizophrenia is a brain illness. Dr. Potkin directs two interdisciplinary research consortia. The Biomedical Imaging Research Network (BIRN) is a national consortium of computer scientists, physicist, cognitive scientist and physicians developing tools and the associated infrastructure needed for multi-site neuroimaging studies. He also directs the Transdisciplinary Imaging Genetics that develops new methods for combining imaging and genetic data to leverage the power of these disciplines as a gene discovery tool for neuropsychiatric illness.