Noted sleep disorders researcher Andrew Krystal joins UCSF as Vice Chair for Research

By Nicholas Roznovsky
 

The UCSF Department of Psychiatry is pleased to announce the appointment of Andrew D. Krystal, MD, as Professor of Psychiatry and Vice Chair for Research, effective June 1, 2016. He will also hold a joint faculty appointment in the UCSF Department of Neurology.

Krystal is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of mood and sleep disorders with over 25 years of clinical and research experience to his credit. The main foci of his work have been the development of new treatments for these conditions and the identification of biomarkers for improving treatment effectiveness. In this work he has utilized tools including electroencephalography, polysomnography, functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy, transcranial direct current stimulation, and transcranial magnetic stimulation.

After completing undergraduate and master’s degrees in biomedical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earning a medical degree from the Duke University School of Medicine, Krystal has served as a faculty member and clinician at Duke University Medical Center for over two decades. He has held a variety of leadership positions at Duke, including Chief of the Division of Brain Stimulation and Neurophysiology, Director of the Brain Stimulation Program, Director of the Sleep Research Laboratory and Insomnia Program, and Director of the Quantitative EEG Laboratory. He is also Director of Neurosciences Medicine for the Duke Clinical Research Institute.

He is the recipient of multiple awards including the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Resident’s Scholarship, a Laughlin Fellowship from the American College of Psychiatrists, two NARSAD Young Investigator Awards, an NIMH Scientist Development Award for Clinicians, and the APA Research Mentorship Award. He currently serves as deputy editor of the journal SLEEP; on the editorial boards of several journals, including Biological Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, Depression and Anxiety, and the Journal of Affective Disorders; on the American Board of Internal Medicine Sleep Medicine Examination Committee; and on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the Sleep Research Society.

“Andrew is an outstanding scientist, clinician, mentor and administrator who will have an enormous impact on the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, the Department of Psychiatry, and the new UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, said Matthew W. State, MD, PhD, Oberndorf Family Distinguished Professor, Chair of the UCSF Department of Psychiatry, Director of LPPI and member of the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. “He will provide an enormous boost to our efforts in clinical and translational research. He is an extraordinarily collaborative clinician-scientist who has played a key leadership role across departments at Duke. After an extensive national search, it was clear that he was the ideal candidate to help us to further our efforts in understanding and treating mood disorders, lead a new cross-departmental effort in the neuroscience of sleep, and contribute to the development of the UCSF Weill Institute.”

About UCSF Psychiatry

The UCSF Department of Psychiatry and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute are among the nation's foremost resources in the fields of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. Together they constitute one of the largest departments in the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, with a mission focused on research (basic, translational, clinical), teaching, patient care, and public service.

UCSF Psychiatry conducts its clinical, educational, and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including UCSF campuses at Parnassus Heights, Mission Bay, and Laurel Heights, the UCSF Medical Center at Mt. Zion, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, the San Francisco VA Health Care System, and UCSF Fresno.

About the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences

The UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, established by the extraordinary generosity of Joan and Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill, brings together world-class researchers with top-ranked physicians to solve some of the most complex challenges in the human brain.

The UCSF Weill Institute leverages UCSF’s unrivaled bench-to-bedside excellence in the neurosciences. It unites three UCSF departments—Neurology, Psychiatry, and Neurological Surgery—that are highly esteemed for both patient care and research, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, a cross-disciplinary alliance of nearly 100 UCSF faculty members from 15 basic-science departments, as well as the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, a multidisciplinary research center focused on finding effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.

About UCSF

UC San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise. It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises two top-ranked hospitals, UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco, and other partner and affiliated hospitals and healthcare providers throughout the Bay Area.