Elliot S. Gershon (born June 5, 1940) is an American psychiatrist and human geneticist. He is Emeritus Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry and Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. He previously served as Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Chicago from 1998 to 2003 and as Chief of the Clinical Neurogenetics Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).^[1]

Gershon received his Bachelor of Arts degree (magna cum laude) from Harvard College in 1961 and his Doctor of Medicine degree (cum laude) from Harvard Medical School in 1965.^[1] He completed his internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and his psychiatric residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center, followed by postdoctoral research at the National Institute of Mental Health.

Gershon began his academic and research career at the National Institute of Mental Health, where he held leadership roles in psychiatric genetics research. From 1984 to 1998, he served as Chief of the Clinical Neurogenetics Branch at NIMH.^[1]

Earlier in his career, he directed research at the Jerusalem Mental Health Center (Herzog Hospital) in Israel from 1971 to 1974.

In 1998, he joined the University of Chicago as Foundations Fund Professor of Psychiatry and Human Genetics and served as Chair of the Department of Psychiatry from 1998 to 2003.^[1] Following retirement, he continued in a post-retirement appointment as Emeritus Professor.

He served in the United States Public Health Service from 1969 to 1998, retiring with the rank of Medical Director.

Since 2003, he has served as Chairman of the National Institute for Psychobiology in Israel (NIPI) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Gershon's research has focused on the genetic epidemiology, molecular genetics, pharmacology, and biological mechanisms underlying major psychiatric disorders, particularly bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

During the 1970s and 1980s, he conducted family and linkage studies examining shared heritability among bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, and major depression. His work contributed to evidence supporting overlapping genetic risk factors among severe mental illnesses.

He co-authored influential early research in the 1970s that contributed to clinical distinctions within bipolar spectrum disorders, including what later became known as bipolar II disorder.

In later decades, he participated in large-scale psychiatric genetics collaborations, including the Bipolar and Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes (B-SNIP) and the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. His research has included studies of endophenotypes, gene expression in the human brain, genomic biomarkers, somatic mutation burden in neurodegenerative disease, and predictors of treatment response in psychosis.

Gershon has served on editorial boards of journals in psychiatry and genetics, including Molecular Psychiatry, Psychiatric Genetics, Journal of Affective Disorders, and Neuropsychopharmacology. He served as chief editor of the Journal of Psychiatry and Brain Science from 2014 to 2025.

He served as President of the American Psychopathological Association from 1991 to 1992 and has held advisory roles in professional organizations related to psychiatric research and genetics.

Gershon received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Psychiatric Genetics in 2006.^[2]

He was awarded the Anna-Monika Prize for research in affective disorders in 2004–05.^[3]

He received the Selo Prize from the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders in 1996.^[4]

He received the Samuel W. Hamilton Award from the American Psychopathological Association in 1992.^[5]

• Elliot S. Gershon publications indexed by Google Scholar