Brief presentation

Professor Michael E. Benros, MD, PhD is head of research on Biological and Precision Psychiatry at the Copenhagen Research Centre for Mental Health, Mental Health Centre Copenhagen, Copenhagen University Hospital. He is recognized internationally for his ongoing involvement in clinical and epidemiological research into mental health, being at the forefront of the emerging field of ImmunoPsychiatry and has helped advancing the field through several landmark papers highlighting the association between immune-related factors and mental illness utilizing Danish nationwide registers and biobanks. His group’s meta-analysis has amongst other highlighted the potential treatment effects of immune modulating drugs for depression and psychotic disorders. He now leads a sizable effort to disentangle the role of the immune system in the development of severe mental disorders, combining immune exposures from the nationwide Danish registers, with immunogenetic investigations, and novel research on cerebrospinal fluid and blood obtained from biobank and clinical studies of patients with psychotic and affective disorders also utilizing omics and systems biology approaches. Furthermore, he is heading the Precision Psychiatry Initiative aiming at paving the way for more precise diagnostics and new treatment targets. He is a board member of the Psychiatric Immunology Section of the World Psychiatric Association and has received a number of awards, including the prestigious Sapere Aude Research Leader award from the Independent Research Fond Denmark.