Professor Brian Dean is Head of the Molecular Psychiatry Laboratory at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, is an Honorary Professorial Fellow in University of Melbourne Department of Psychiatry Florey and Mental Health, is a Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Mental Health Swinburne University and is Deputy Director of the Victorian Brain Bank Network. Professor Dean has published more than 250 papers and book chapters. These publications are mostly in the fields of biological psychiatry and neuropsychopharmacology which reflects a research focus of the pathologies of major psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depressive disorders and the mechanisms by which drugs act to lessen the symptoms of those disorders. Professor Dean is recognised both internationally and nationally and this is reflected in him being a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (UK), the Treasurer of the CINP (the world neuropsychopharmacology society) and the Foundation President of Biological Psychiatry Australia, the national biological psychiatry society. Professor Dean has a long history with the Foundation, winning the first of his many grants from the Foundation in 1989. Professor Dean was Head of the Rebecca Cooper Research Laboratories at the Mental Health Research Institute from 1995 to 2011. Professor Brian Dean is also the current Chair of the Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Committee.
In 2019 Brian received the Outstanding Basic Research Scientist Award from the Schizophrenia International Research Society, the Lundbeck Basic Science Award from the Asian College of Neuropsychopharmacology and the Isaac Schweitzer Award from Biological Psychiatry Australia. Brian had previously received the Lilly Oration Award from the Australian Society of Psychiatric Research and had presented the University of Melbourne Beattie Smith Lecture.