Julio Licinio

Licinio wrote four book reviews for Science, including a commentary on the current diagnostic system in psychiatry, the American Psychiatry Association (APA)'s "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders", Fifth Edition (DSM-5) and the controversial exhibit on Sigmund Freud at the US Library of Congress. Licinio writes a blog on science-related matters for the general public. In 2018-2019 Licinio was a member of the New York State Governor's Suicide Prevention Task Force, representing the State University of New York.

In 2005–2010, Licinio was a member of the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Advisory Committee of Genetics Health and Society (SACGHS). The key issue addressed during his term was the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), which was strongly supported by the SACGHS. GINA was enacted on 21 May 2008 (Pub.L. 110–233, 122 Stat. 881) as an Act of Congress in the United States, designed to prohibit the use of genetic information in health insurance and employment.

Licinio directed three graduate training programs with master's degrees in translational investigation, for physician-scientists, at UCLA (supported by an NIH K30 award), University of Miami (supported by an NIH K30 award), and Australian National University. He also created and obtained NIH T32, NIH K12, and PhRMA Foundation (2004 Center of Excellence in Clinical Pharmacology) funding for the UCLA Interdepartmental Clinical Pharmacology Training Program, of which he was founding director (1999–2006). Licinio was the recipient of an NIH K24 award to mentor early career physician-scientists (2002–2007).

Licinio is known for his research into leptin and its role in conveying a feeling of satiety. For example, in 2002, he identified three people from Turkey who suffered from a genetic disorder called leptin deficiency – the only three adults known at that time to have this disorder – all of whom were severely overweight as a result. He then administered daily leptin injections to each of them, and found that after ten months, the patients had lost half of his or her original body weight. He discovered that despite being produced by a dispersed mass of fat cells, leptin is secreted in a highly organised manner with distinct pulsatility and circadian rhythm and that it appears to regulate the minute-to-minute rhythms of several endocrine axes, such as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the hypothalamic–pituitary–thyroid axis, and the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis. Licinio and his colleagues were the first to suggest that leptin may have antidepressant effects, a concept that was subsequently extended by other groups. He also contributed to pioneer the concept that leptin has pro-cognitive effects in humans.

With his group, Licinio conducted work on the precision medicine and pharmacogenomics of depression that started in 2000 as part of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences NIH Pharmacogenomics Research Network (PGRN). In that project, he and his team studied a Mexican-American population with major depressive disorder in the city of Los Angeles, in the context of an extensive process of community engagement, which received Certificates of Commendation both from the California State Legislature and the United States Congress. He contributed the Mexican-American samples to the International HapMap Project. His pharmacogenetics research has resulted in several publications on predictors of antidepressant treatment response in this population.

Licinio was an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University, then he was a Unit Chief within the Clinical Neurodocrinology Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health at the NIH Intramural Research Program (1993–1999), and later was professor of psychiatry and medicine/endocrinology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA from 1999 until 2006, where he had multiple roles, such as Founding Director of three NIH funded programs: the Interdepartmental Center on Clinical Pharmacology. In 2006, he was appointed the Miller Professor of Psychiatry, Chairman of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and subsequently Associate Dean for project development, responsible for starting the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, where he worked until 2009, when he moved to Australia as Director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research. Licinio returned to the US in 2017 as Senior Vice President for Academic and Health Affairs, Executive Dean, College of Medicine, and in 2019 he was appointed SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry, Pharmacology, Medicine and Neuroscience & Physiology at State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York.

During 1993–2001, Licinio was a temporary advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO), co-chairing ten WHO scientific meetings in seven countries, and co-edited the resulting ten books containing the proceedings of those meetings, mostly focused on the role of dysthymia in neurological disorders.

Licinio originally received his MD from the Federal University of Bahia in 1982, and completed an internship in internal medicine at the University of São Paulo from 1983 to 1984. He then moved to the United States and completed training in endocrinology at The University of Chicago, and psychiatry at Albert Einstein in the Bronx as well as at Weill Cornell Medical College. In 2009, Licinio moved to Australia, where he completed a PhD in Psychiatry at Flinders University in 2017. Licinio is registered as a specialist in psychiatry by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. He is board certified in psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and he is a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (elected 2015), the American Psychiatric Association, and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. In May 2019 Licinio completed an MBA from the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University and an MS in Healthcare Leadership from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences,