Jose de Leon

Jose de Leon, M.D., Professor, Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, is an active psychiatrist, scientist and author. In addition to his academic work, he has directed the Mental Health Research Center at Eastern State Hospital for the past 16 years. As an expert in psychopharmacology and serious mental illness, he provides official consultation to clinicians caring for patients with complex psychiatric illnesses, including those with both mental illness and intellectual disabilities, at public mental health facilities across Kentucky. He maintains an active state-wide role in continuous quality improvement in the care of institutionalized individuals with intellectual disability by providing postmortem investigations and recommending specific interventions for improving care standards for this complex population. He is currently developing specialized pharmacological guidelines for Kentucky facilities that serve those with intellectual disabilities. His antipsychotic guidelines for use in this population have been published (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16040229; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19084370) in the journal Research in Developmental Disabilities.

Dr. de Leon‘s research career has been prolific. He is recognized nationally and internationally as an expert in schizophrenia, psychopharmacology, pharmacogenetics and personalized medicine. He has published more than 220 peer-reviewed manuscripts in scientific journals indexed in PubMed including a letter in the journal Science (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18687938). The Science Citation Index (SCI) and the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) developed by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI) show that Dr. de Leon’s scientific publications have been cited in the literature more than 5000 times. Hirsch (PNAS 102:16569-72, 2005) proposed the “h” index to summarize the significance of a researcher’s articles. Dr. de Leon’s “h” index is 37, meaning that he has at least 37 articles with ≥37 citations. His most ambitious study to date was described in Business Week’s September 5, 2005, cover article titled "Drugs Get Smart", and was also published in CNS Spectrums in 2009 (14:19-34) (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19169185). In this study, over 4500 subjects recruited from three Kentucky state hospitals were studied for CYP2D6 and CYP2C19 genetic profiles using the first DNA microarray approved by the FDA for clinical use (The AmpliChip CYP 450 Test).

It is possible to buy the electronic version of each chapter (each drug guide) for $24.95 on the publisher’s webpage of A Practitioner’s Guide for Prescribing Anticonvulsants and Mood Stabilizers for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities http:/dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-2012-5.