Ridha Joober joined the Research Centre of the Douglas Hospital in 1999 where he devotes his research to genetics and pharmacogenetics of psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder in children and autism. The work of Dr. Joober is dedicated to developing a better understanding of the genetic architecture of psychiatric disorders, which could lead to a better understanding of the underlying biology of mental illness diagnoses and treatments. Dr. Joober also done research on care models and the organization of services for young people affected with mental disorders.His more recent work combines genetics and neuroimaging techniques to study the effects of environmental factor, such as maternal smoking during pregnancy and drug abuse during adolescence, on brain development and functioning in patients with psychiatric neurodevelopmental disorders. As a psychiatrist, Ridha Joober treats and monitors adolescents and young adults experiencing a first psychotic episode, patients with schizophrenia living in the community and children with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity. He is the Director of PEPP-Montreal, a program that offers high quality care to young people with psychotic disorder for the first time in their lives. Dr. Joober is Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology and Human Genetics of the Faculty of Medicine of McGill University. Due to his engagement in both clinical and molecular investigations, Dr. Joober work to establish integrated research programs whose primary objective is to improve the care and well being of patients and their families.

Dr. Joober is the author / co-author of over 230 scientific articles published in journals with peer review. He has received several awards, including the Young Investigator Award from the American National Alliance of Research on Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders, the Young Investigator Award of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the award of Senior Researcher from the Fond du Québec Health Research.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Joober%20R%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=26211621