For immediate release July 7, 2005
Contact: Dr. Irene S. Levine
Nathan Kline Institute
845-398-6503or e-mail: levinei@nki.rfmh.org

NKI Director Dr. Robert Cancro announces his retirement

After 23 years as director of the Nathan Kline Institute for
Psychiatric Research (NKI), Robert Cancro, MD, MedDSci, retired,
effective July 7th, 2005. Simultaneously, he announced that he was
relinquishing his position as Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at
the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine.

Under Dr. Cancro´s leadership, NKI garnered a national and
international reputation as a center of excellence in psychiatric
research on serious brain disorders, such as schizophrenia and
Alzheimer´s disease. In 1998, Dr. Cancro oversaw the Institute´s move
into a modern, totally renovated research facility. With the opening of
new state-of-the-art laboratories and the hiring of a cadre of
distinguished psychiatric researchers from across the country to
complement the talents of NKI´s respected staff of interdisciplinary
scientists, the Institute´s funding from the federal government and
various foundations increased more than four-fold.

Dr. Cancro assumed the helm of the Orangeburg, New York research
enterprise in 1982, shortly after the death of its first director,
psychiatrist Dr. Nathan S. Kline, for whom the Institute is named. At
that time and to this day, NKI, a facility of the New York State Office
of Mental Health (OMH), remains one of a handful of state-supported
research institutes exclusively focused on the etiology, treatment,
prevention and rehabilitation of major mental disorders.

Wearing his proverbial "two hats," Dr. Cancro was able to forge a
seamless collaboration between scientists working at NYU and on the NKI
campus. Dr. Cancro holds the distinction of serving as one of the
longest-serving chairs of psychiatry in the nation. During his tenure
at NKI, he also enhanced working relationships with the local community
including Rockland Psychiatric Center, the Rockland County Department
of Mental Health, and local providers, families and consumer
organizations. In this way, NKI has played an important role in
promoting the rapid transfer of research findings to service settings.

"I wanted to let you know how grateful I am to have had the
extraordinary opportunity to work with such dedicated and talented
individuals at both institutions," Dr. Cancro wrote in a memo
announcing his plans last month to Institute staff." Because these
roles were so meaningful and professionally satisfying for so many
years, you can well imagine that this change will be bittersweet. But I
greatly look forward to spending more time with my family and to
devoting my professional energies to the development of the new Mental
Illness Prevention Center. I know that I am leaving NKI on a solid
foundation," he added. Dr. Cancro will remain on the faculty of NYU as
the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Psychiatry.

OMH Commissioner Dr. Sharon Carpinello asked NKI Deputy Director,
Jerome Levine, MD to serve as interim director until an acting or
permanent director is named.

# # #

Located on the grounds of Rockland Psychiatric Center, The Nathan Kline
Institute for Psychiatric Research is a facility of the New York State
Office of Mental Health that is nationally and internationally renowned
for its pioneering contributions to psychiatric research. On the
web:http://www.rfmh.org