Advances in Ketamine and Esketamine for Treatment-Resistant Depression: Evidence, Mechanisms, and Clinical Applications

Sponsored by the Ewald W. Bussee, MD, ScD Lectureship Endowment Fund Dr. Gerard Sanacora is the Gross Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine, Director of the Yale Depression Research Program, and Co-Director of the Interventional Psychiatry Program at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Dr. Sanacora completed an NIH sponsored Medical Scientist Training Program at the SUNY Stony Brook, earning his Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics in 1992 and his M.D. degree in 1994. He later completed the Clinical Neuroscientist Training Program Residency in the Department of Psychiatry, and an NIH funded Neuroimaging Scientist Training Program Fellowship at Yale University. His research has employed both preclinical and clinical studies in attempts to expand our understanding of the pathophysiology of mood and neurodegenerative disorders and to use this information in developing new approaches for treating and preventing the disorders. He has served as PI on a broad range of NIH, foundation, and industry sponsored studies. At multiple levels these studies have helped highlight novel pathophysiological mechanisms involving the amino acid neurotransmitter systems in relation to mood and neurodegenerative disorders and contributed significantly to the development, testing, and actual clinical application of novel treatment approaches targeting these systems. Most recently he has expanded his focus to explore mechanisms of more efficiently and cost effectively bringing nascent, neuroscience informed treatment approaches to clinical practice. Dr. Sanacora received the Anna-Monkia Stiftung international award for the investigation of the biological substrate and functional disturbances of depression in 2009 and the Joel Elkes Research Award for Outstanding contributions to Psychopharmacology from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology in 2011, and most recently the 2022 Association for Clinical and Translational Sciences award for Team Science for these efforts.