Joel Elkes

His father served in the Russian Army as a medical officer during the Russian Revolution of 1905 and World War I.

The family fled to Kovno (now Kaunas) in the newly formed Lithuanian Republic.

Elkes attended Schwabe's Gymnasium, a Hebrew Jewish high school, with a Zionist orientation.

Elkes was an outstanding student graduating with honours and developing an interest in chemistry.

He hoped to become a "scientist serving medicine".

This was born from the fact that he had a close relationship with his father whom he viewed as a great example of physicianship and a good person.

Following his education at the Gymnasium he spent a year in a German language school in Königsberg where he graduated at the top of his class.

This was followed by four months at Lausanne University Hospital attending lectures as a run-up to medical training.

At this time Elkes' father was physician to the British Ambassador in Lithuania and the ambassador encouraged Elkes to go to England to undertake medical training, providing a letter of recommendation for him.

Joel Elkes (12 November 1913 – 30 October 2015) was a leading medical researcher specialising in the chemistry of the brain.

He qualified as a physician in London and later became a medical researcher who published the first double-blind scientific trial on chlorpromazine to treat schizophrenia.

He is regarded as the father of modern neuropsychopharmacology and directed the first experimental psychiatric Uffculme Clinic in Birmingham, UK.

He was responsible for the setting up of international organisations and university departments to further the investigation of the effects of psychopharmacy.

He spent the latter part of his career endeavouring to bring higher levels of humanity, compassion and ethics to medical training.

Elkes was born of Jewish parents Elkhanan and Miriam in the city of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad).

In 1930 Elkes enrolled in the St Mary's Hospital Medical School, Paddington in London where he was tutored by such medical luminaries as Charles Wilson, 1st Baron Moran, Almroth Wright, Alexander Fleming and Aleck Bourne, whose daughter Elkes would later marry.

Here he met Professor Alistair Frazer and in 1939 he, Frazer and Steward (a student colleague) had a paper on fat absorption published in The Journal of Physiology.

The Second World War broke off his family connections and support.

He found it difficult to support himself and his sister Sara but was offered a post by Alistair Frazer in the newly formed Transfusion Service where he met Charmian Bourne.

Elkes graduated in 1941 and was invited by Frazer to join him as a research fellow in pharmacology at Birmingham University.

In 1945 he was promoted to lecturer and in 1948 to senior lecturer and acting director of the department.

His research output at this time was considerable, resulting in 16 publications.

Elkes' experimental work involved the investigation of the physical chemistry, constitution and structure of biological membranes, the lipoproteins.

"Suddenly I realised the nervous system was full of lipoproteins. It was myelin, a beautiful paracrystalline structure ubiquitously distributed throughout the nervous system."

Elkes work continued with a collaboration with a Ph.D crystallography student, Bryan Finean.

Together they developed a technique for the X-ray diffraction of a living frog's sciatic nerve in response to temperature and chemicals.

This led Elkes to study the anticholinesterases and the action of acetylcholine.

Concurrent with his laboratory work Elkes, together with his wife Charmian, (a general practitioner) started training at the City Hospital, Birmingham and carrying out trials on patients with catatonic schizophrenia using amobarbital, amphetamines and mephenesin.

The results showed different responses and demonstrated the possible distribution of different controlling cells with the brain.

This work, carried out between 1945 and 1950, brought the Elkes to the attention of the mental health milieu in the UK.

In the early 1950s Elkes researched LSD and remained interested in the substance for some time, forming a friendship with pioneering LSD therapist Ronald Sandison in the mid 1950s, and in 1965 inviting Czech LSD therapist Stanislav Grof to come to Baltimore to research LSD as a clinical and research fellow at the Henry Phipps Clinic and in the Research Unit of Spring Grove State Hospital.

In 1950 Elkes was awarded a Fulbright Travelling Fellowship in America where he worked at the New England Baptist Hospital in Boston and at Norwich State Hospital, Connecticut.

On his return to Birmingham he was appointed chairman and professor of a new mental health department which he called The Department for Experimental Psychiatry.

Elkes continued his work on anticholinesterase, acetylcholine blockers and amphetamines and their action on the activity of the brain and thus behaviour.

At this time there was a chance discovery in France of a drug called chlorpromazine and in a double blind trial Elkes demonstrated the efficacy of this drug in controlling the symptoms of schizophrenia.

By the mid-1950s Elkes had established himself as the leader in the developing field of psychopharmacology.

In 1954 he instigated the first international Neurochemical Symposium in Oxford, England, and in 1957 he arranged the first World Health Organization group on psychotropic drugs.

In the same year he was invited to set up an experimental psychiatry programme, the first Clinical Neuropharmacology Research Centre for the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, D.C. He published a collection of academic papers and became one of the first to suggest the important role of chemicals in the functioning of the brain.

Following his move to Washington he resided permanently in the United States.

In 2011 in a talk to the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Elkes identified three people who had inspired him: Einstein in physics, Erlich for his work on neuro-receptors, and Goethe for his rare combination of humanism, scientific creativity and spirit.