Winner 2018: Marion Leboyer, France

Marion Leboyer is professor of psychiatry and head of the Department of Psychiatry and Addiction at Henri Mondor University Hospital of the University Paris-Est Créteil (Paris XII) and head of the Translational Psychiatry Laboratory (U955) at the Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (INSERM). Leading a programme of biomarker identification in large, highly pheno- and genotyped cohorts of patients, she succeeded in identifying increased risk for autism of the first mutations of genes implicated in synaptogenesis and has been at the forefront of several important programmes investigating immune dysfunction in psychiatric disorders, including auto-immune psychosis. Her group’s influential neuroimaging research has shed new light on the role of cerebellar abnormalities in autism and on the connections between fronto-striatal loop dysfunction and emotional disorders.

She is the recipient of the 2018 ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award in recognition of her outstanding achievements combining innovative and high-impact research identifying genetic and environmental risk factors in major psychiatric disorders with clinical leadership and inspirational international collaboration.

Read the press release.