Philip J. Cowen MD, MBBS

Philip Cowen trained in medicine at University College Hospital, London, and then in psychiatry at King’s College Hospital. He came to Oxford to work in the MRC Unit of Clinical Pharmacology under David Grahame-Smith. In his laboratory, he studied the basic neuropharmacology of serotonin and its application to clinical psychopharmacology. Since 1983 he has been an MRC Clinical Scientist and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist in the Department of Psychiatry in Oxford. He was elected to a personal chair in Psychopharmacology at the University of Oxford in 1997 and to a Fellowship of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences in 2001. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Association of Psychopharmacology in 2014. His main interests are in the biochemistry and treatment of mood disorders, particularly the pharmacological management of resistant depression. He is the senior author of the Shorter Oxford Textbook of Psychiatry.