Brown's psych chair is latest to step aside

Top psychiatrists are dropping like flies these days. The latest academic to tender his resignation is Brown University's head of psychiatry Marty Keller. According to a memo issued by the university (and reported by In Vivo), Keller will step down at the end of June. Perhaps coincidentally, Keller is one of the researchers under investigation by the Senate Finance Committee for potential conflicts of interest.

As you know, Emory University's psychiatry chair Charles Nemeroff (photo) bowed out after the same Senate committee probe unearthed consulting income and grant money from pharma, some of which had not been reported to the school as required. In Vivo notes that Stanford University is also on the hunt for a new chair; psychiatry chief Alan Schatzberg also ran afoul of Sen. Charles Grassley's probe and resigned as lead investigator of an NIH grant. Meanwhile, Harvard University's Dr. Joseph Biederman has fallen under increasing scrutiny for his relationships with Johnson & Johnson as he was researching the company's antipsychotic drug Risperdal.

- read the In Vivo item