Oral Histories

Van Kammen, Daniel

Biographical Sketch:

Daniel P. van Kammen MD, PhD has joined as Chief Medical Officer. As such he will be responsible for the clinical development efforts of CHDI, Inc. CHDI was established in 2003 as a non-profit entity pursuing a biotech approach to finding therapies for Huntington disease (HD).

Dr. van Kammen brings almost 10 year of CNS industrial biopharmaceutical drug development experience and more than 25 years of psychopharmacological experience to CHDI. Formerly, he was Global Medical Leader at Johnson & Johnson, Raritan, NJ., responsible for Phase 1 through 4 programs; Sr. Distinguished Scientist and Head of CNS Phase 1 and 2a at Aventis (now sanofi-aventis); and most recently vice-president of Clinical Development at ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. where his responsibilities included oversight of multiple Phase 1 and 2 trials for schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease psychosis and sleep maintenance insomnia. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. van Kammen was Professor of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh Medical School, Pittsburgh, PA, and CMO at the Highland Drive VAMC, Pittsburgh, where his schizophrenia and sleep research was funded by the Dept. of Veteran Affairs, NIMH and private foundations. Before moving to Pittsburgh, he built a multidisciplinary pharmacological and biochemical research program of schizophrenia at the National Institutes of Mental Health, NIH Clinical Center, in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Dr. van Kammen is presently Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.

Dr. van Kammen received his Medical Degree from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, where he also received his PhD (in Pharmacology). He completed his psychiatric residency at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD, and is certified in Psychiatry by the American and Dutch Boards of Psychiatry and Neurology.

He conducted multiple pharmacological studies of proof of mechanism, proof of concept, treatment response and relapse prediction and efficacy in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Biomarker studies ranged from studies of cognition, sleep, psychophysiology and brain imaging to studies of plasma, CSF and blood constituents, such as monoamines, peptides, amino-acids, endocrines, interleukins and membrane phospholipids. In addition, he studied affective disorders and PTSD.

Dr. van Kammen is a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) and the Collegium Internationale Neuropsychopharmacologicum (CINP), and a member of many other national and international professional organizations. He has published over 220 refereed journal articles on the clinical, biochemical and treatment aspects of schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders, and over 100 book chapters, scholarly reviews and editorials. He edited several books on mental health research.

Topical Index:

Interview History:

Dates: 1-Dec
Interviewer: .Ban

Dates: Dec-97
Interviewer: L.Hollister

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