BIOGRAPHY - Professor Tonmoy Sharma MSc MRCPsych

Professor Tonmoy Sharma is Director of the Clinical Neurosciences Research Centre (CNRC) in Dartford, UK.

After qualifying as a physician in 1987 he trained at UCL and then at the Institute of Psychiatry in London where he was Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry. Before opening the independent CNRC in 2001, he headed the Section of Cognitive Psychopharmacology at the Institute of Psychiatry, London. Professor Sharma has held numerous clinical positions including Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist for the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust.

He is also currently the Medical Director of Sovereign Health plc, an organisation that specialises in Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation using computerised cognitive remediation techniques.

One of the leading researchers in Europe on psychosis, he has published over 150 papers and book chapters in the field of psychosis and schizophrenia. In addition, he has published four books in the last four years on cognition and brain imaging in schizophrenia as well as In your Right Mind (1999, Faber and Faber), with Dr Thomas Stuttaford, medical correspondent for the Times – a book about mental illness for lay people. A fifth book from Oxford University Press is due out next year. He is on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Schizophrenia and Brain Research, and Schizophrenia Research.

Professor Sharma is on various advisory boards governing the development of antipsychotics. He is also a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Changing Minds Campaign, a 5-year initiative to combat the stigma of schizophrenia.

Professor Sharma’s research work has examined the relationship between brain and behaviour using a variety of surrogate markers including cognition, startle response,
eye movements and brain imaging techniques. His research team has examined
the relationship between psychological changes and changes in the brain
function during treatment of psychiatric disorders, especially schizophrenia.

His research group at the Institute of Psychiatry was the first to visualise the cognitive effects of second generation antipsychotics in schizophrenia using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) Thas now been expanded to cognitive enhancers in memory disorders and schizophrenia, His group was also the first to translate the animal model of schizophrenia using the startle response to a clinical setting and have demonstrated the effects of the newer antipsychotics using this model

Professor Sharma’s research team at the CNRC is currently investigating the relationship between cognition and functional outcome in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and Alzheimer's disease. He has held several peer-reviewed grants for his research from a variety of sources including the Stanley Foundation, National Lotteries Charity Board and the Wellcome Trust as
well as commercial organisations.