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David J. Kupfer, M.D., Thomas Detre Professor and Chair, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and director of Research at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, will present “The Medical Burden of Bipolar Disorder”at the 2009 Albert M. Biele, M.D. Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Thomas Jefferson University.  The 31^st annual Biele Lecture will be held Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 11 A.M., in the DePalma Auditorium.

Dr. Kupfer is unequivocally one of the top luminaries in Psychiatry today.  Dr. Kupfer received his bachelor’s (magna cum laude) and M.D. degrees from Yale University.  Following an internship at Montefiore Hospital Center in New York in 1966, he was appointed a Clinical Fellow in Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine.  In 1967, he became a Clinical Associate at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and was assigned as a ward administrator in the Laboratory of Clinical Psychobiology under Frederick Snyder, M.D.  While at NIMH, he also completed a diploma course in community psychiatry at the Washington School of Psychiatry.  In 1969, Dr. Kupfer continued his postgraduate training at the Dana Psychiatric Clinic of Yale-New Haven Hospital serving as a team supervisor, and in 1970 was appointed assistant professor of Psychiatry and director of the Outpatient Division. 

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In 1973, he joined the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine as an associate professor of Psychiatry and director of Research and Research Training at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC).  Within two years, he was promoted to professor.  He became Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry in 1983.  In 1994 he became the Thomas Detre Chair in Psychiatry.  At Pittsburgh he helped develop a model of service delivery system that provided a disorder based focus for patient care.  Not only did this model facilitate clinical research, but it also improved the quality of patient care and training.  It has become a model that many other major research and clinical institutions have followed. 

During the 1970's and 1980's, Dr. Kupfer stimulated psychiatric research within the University of Pittsburgh and nationwide.  As Thomas Detre Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, and director of Research at WPIC, he oversees the coordination and expansion of investigations among the department's 200 faculty.  He has promoted widespread collaborations between clinical investigators in psychiatry and those in more basic neurosciences.  These studies are not limited to depression and other mood disorders, but encompass virtually every psychiatric disorder and every age group, from infants to the elderly.

Dr. Kupfer has been the recipient of numerous scholarships and research awards including the Twenty-Sixth Annual Award of the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital in Memory of Edward A. Strecker, M.D. (1989), the William R. McAlpin, Jr., Research Achievement Award sponsored by the National Mental Health Association (1990), the 1993 American Psychiatric Association Award for Research in Psychiatry, the 1996 Gerald L. Klerman Lifetime Research Award (jointly with Dr. Ellen Frank), the Institute of Medicine’s 1998 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health, the American Psychopathological Association’s 1999 Joseph Zubin Award (jointly with Dr. Ellen Frank).  In 1990, he was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.    Dr. Kupfer is the Founding President of the International Society of Bipolar Disorders.

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A prolific writer, Dr. Kupfer has authored or co-authored a combination of more than 953 articles, books, and book chapters.  Dr. Kupfer's own research has focused primarily on long-term treatment strategies for recurrent mood disorders, the pathogenesis of depression and the relationship between biomarkers and depression.

Dr. Kupfer is the Editor of Current Opinion in Psychiatry and the Associate Editor of Bipolar Disorders.  He also sits on the editorial boards of Addictive Behaviors, Archives of General Psychiatry, Clinical Neuroscience Research, European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research,  Journal of Affective Disorders, Psychiatry Research, and The International Journal of Sleep Disorders.

Dr. Kupfer has served as President of the American College of Neuropsycho-pharmacology and the Society for Biological Psychiatry, on the Council of Research of the American Psychiatric Association, and is a fellow of the American College of Neuro-psychopharmacology, American Psychiatric Association, and the Academy of Behavioral Medical Research.  Dr. Kupfer chairs the Task Force for DSM-V.

The Biele lectureship was created in 1979 to honor Dr. Albert M. Biele, an outstanding Jefferson physician, scholar and psychiatry professor and friend to many at Jefferson. The lecture was endowed by the Biele family and members of the Jefferson Medical College Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior.   The Biele Lecture committee is chaired by Karl Doghramji, M.D., professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Thomas Jefferson University, and director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

For further information, call Danielle Parker-Mangum at 215-955-6104. 

Editor’s Note:  The DePalma Auditorium is located in Jefferson’s Thompson Building, 1020 Sansom Street.