Professor Allan Young

Biography

Professor Allan Young MB, ChB, MPhil, PhD, FRCP (Edin.), FRCPC, FRCPsych 

Professor Allan Young joined King’s in 2013 and holds the Chair of Mood Disorders and is Director of the Centre for Affective Disorders in the Department of Psychological Medicine in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London (where he is also interim Vice-Dean for Academic Psychiatry), United Kingdom (UK).  

Prof Young is the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Mental Health Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) Cluster and Theme lead in the Translational Therapeutics Cluster. Prof Young is the clinical academic lead in the Psychological Medicine and Integrated Care Clinical Academic Group in the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust where he is also a Consultant Psychiatrist and the head of the National Affective Disorders Tertiary Clinic.  

He has held academic appointments at Oxford University; Newcastle University (latterly holding the Chair of General Psychiatry at Newcastle), University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, where he held the Leading Edge Endowment Fund Endowed Chair in Research in the Department of Psychiatry and was also the Director of the Institute of Mental Health and Imperial College London, where he held the Chair of Psychiatry and was Director of the Centre for Mental Health. 

Professor Young’s research interests focus on the cause and treatments for severe psychiatric illnesses, particularly mood disorders. He has received research grant funding from the UK Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Stanley Medical Research Institute, the Canadian Institutes for Heath Research (CIHR), the National Institutes of Health (USA), and numerous other funding agencies. He has published over 400 peer-reviewed publications and a number of books about psychopharmacology and affective disorders including Bipolar Disorders: Basic Mechanisms and Therapeutic Implications (2nd Ed) with J.C. Soares, and Practical Management of Bipolar Disorder with I.N. Ferrier and E. Michalak (Cambridge University Press, 2010). 

Professor Young was recently ranked as one of the world's leading scientific minds in the field of Psychiatry and Psychology, according to the 2014 Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researchers list.  In all of science, a total of over 3,000 researchers worldwide earned this distinction and the academics listed rank among the top 1% most cited for their subject field and year of publication, a mark of exceptional impact. (see: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iop/news/records/2014/July/Three-IoP-academics-ranked-as-worlds-leading-scientific-minds.aspx) 

Professor Young is a member of several editorial boards and is a member of numerous professional and scientific societies. He is immediate Past-President of the International Society for Affective Disorders, President of the British Association of Psychopharmacology and the immediate past Chair of the Special Committee for Psychopharmacology of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.  

Research Interests

•  Affective Disorders 
•  Psychopharmacology 

Expertise and Public Engagement

Professor Young is a member of several editorial boards and is a member of numerous professional and scientific societies. He is immediate Past-President of the International Society for Affective Disorders, President of the British Association of Psychopharmacology and the immediate past Chair of the Special Committee for Psychopharmacology of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. 

Prof Young is also a Trustee of the patient and family charity Bipolar UK. The national charity dedicated to supporting individuals with the much misunderstood and devastating condition of bipolar, their families and carers.  Prof Young is a trustee of The Drug Safety Research Unit (DSRU), an independent academic unit internationally respected for its work in Pharmacovigilance, Pharmacoepidemiology, Risk Management and Training Services for over 30 years. http://www.dsru.org/.