Dr. Tony George is Professor and Chair in Addiction Psychiatry, and Head, Addiction Psychiatry Program at the University of Toronto Medical School. He also serves as Head, Addictions Research, Senior Psychiatrist in the Addictions Program, and Head, Concurrent Disorders Service at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Prior to coming too Toronto in 2006, he was an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, and Director of the Program for Research in Smokers with Mental Illness (PRISM) at the Connecticut Mental Health Center in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.
Dr. George received his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and microbiology in 1988, and M.D. degree in 1992, from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and completed psychiatry residency (1996) and fellowship training in neuropharmacology (1998) at Yale School of Medicine, joining the Yale faculty in 1998. He is an internationally-recognized expert on substance misuse in serious psychiatric disorders, with an emphasis on tobacco dependence, cognitive neuroscience and medications development. He has published over 90 peer-reviewed articles, brief reports and reviews on the pharmacology of nicotine and stimulants, co-morbid psychiatric disorders and substance abuse, nicotinic mechanisms in neuropsychiatric disorders, and psychopharmacological treatments of nicotine and other addictions in patients with psychiatric disorders. His research group at Yale is supported by three R01 grants from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a NIDA Independent Scientist (K02) Career Award, and a NARSAD Independent Investigator Award (2005-2007). Previously Dr. George was the recipient of two Young Investigator Awards (1997, 2000) from NARSAD. He serves as mentor to two current NARSAD Young Investigator Awardees. He is a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP), The Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, The Society of Biological Psychiatry, The College on Problems in Drug Dependence, The American Psychiatric Association’s Practice Guidelines Subcommittee on Substance Use Disorders, the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP) of the University of California and the Medications Development Research Initial Grant Review Group (NIDA-L) of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the first book on the development of pharmacotherapies for tobacco dependence entitled “Medication Treatments for Nicotine Dependence” published by Taylor and Francis in August, 2006, and serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, and on the Editorial Boards of the American Journal on Addictions and Psychiatric Times. He is also a Member of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Addiction Psychiatry.
