ReDNet Project and are pleased to announce that the First International Conference on Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS):"The Ever-Changing World of Psychoactive Drugs" will be held on 12-13 March 2012 in Budapest, Hungary This conference will offer a unique opportunity to network and share scientfic knowledge on the nature of novel compounds and the clinical and legal challenges faced by multi-disciplinary professionals today. Around 40 speakers from the European Union and further afield will attend to share their experience and knowledge of novel psychoactive substances, intervention and prevention models and the role of information technology in this phenomenon. Call for Abstracts - deadline is 15th January 2012. REGISTRATION IS FREE OF CHARGE BUT PLACES ARE LIMITED =================================== Confirmed Speakers – Biographies Dr Paul Dargan Dr Paul Dargan is a Consultant Physician and Clinical Toxicologist and Clinical Director at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK. He is also a Reader in Toxicology at King's College London. He has an active research and teaching programme with a focus on recreational drug toxicity, self-poisoning and heavy metal toxicity. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed papers and numerous book chapters. He sits on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) and is an expert adviser to a number of other bodies including the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drugs Addiction EMCDDA), the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). Dr Claudia Rimondo Dr Claudia Rimondo is project manager for the Verona Addiction Department and works with the Department for Antidrug Policies of the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers. She manages several national projects, primarily in drug use prevention, drugs early warning systems, web monitoring, outcome data collection and process, and prevention of drug and alcohol related fatalities. She coordinates numerous research projects on neuroscience of addiction. She also works for UNICRI in the field of new media communication and collection and sharing of evidence based information, and for the Italian Red Cross managing projects aimed at building systems to monitor the demand and supply of psychoactive substances on the Internet. She is a member of the Council of Experts and Professionals of the Department for Antidrug Policies, as expert for the National Early Warning System. Professor Andy Parrott Professor Andy Parrott, from the Department of Psychology, Swansea University UK, is an international authority on the human psychobiology of MDMA or Ecstasy. He has published numerous research papers on its recreational use, including the first to demonstrate memory impairments in young Ecstasy/MDMA users compared to similar aged controls. These research findings have been presented at numerous international conferences. Professor Andy Parrott's other main field of research expertise is the psychobiology of nicotine dependency. In total he has over 300 journal articles, book chapters and conference papers which cover the main classes of psychoactive drug, including CNS stimulants, CNS depressants, antipsychotics, and other recreational drugs. He is lead author on a key European textbook "Understanding Drugs and Behaviour" (Wiley, 2004). Dr Roumen Sedefov Dr Roumen Sedefov is with the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) since 2001 and currently holds the position of Head of Unit, Supply reduction and new trends. Previous to joining the EMCDDA, Dr Sedefov has worked as an advisor to the European Commission for various drug projects, based in Riga, Latvia and Brussels, Belgium. His professional career includes a NIDA sponsored fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, as well as various international assignments, including with the World Health Organisation Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen. A Bulgarian national, Dr Sedefov holds a degree in medicine and specialty in psychiatry from the Medical Academy, Sofia. Prior to his international assignments, Dr Sedefov has been active in treatment, research and policy development at national level for more than 10 years. Dr Ana Gallegos Dr Ana Gallegos is a scientific analyst at the Action on new drugs of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). Since 2009, she is responsible, amongst others, for the implementation of the European Early-warning system on new psychoactive substances. A Spanish national, she holds a PhD in theoretical and computational chemistry from the University of Girona. She has published over 50 research papers, including peer-reviewed articles, technical reports and book chapters. Her previous research was on the development and implementation of quantitative structure activity relationship models and quantum similarity techniques in the field of computer-aided molecular design. Currently her research interests are focused on new psychoactive substances, their related-effects, pharmacology and toxicity. Paul Griffiths Paul Griffiths has worked in the drugs field for over 25 years. Prior to 1999, he was based at the National Addiction Centre in London, where he was involved with a wide variety of research projects on drug issues. From 2000, his activities have focused on the international monitoring of drug use, working first as senior epidemiologist for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in Vienna, (UNODC), and subsequently, for the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), in Lisbon. Paul joined the EMCDDA in 2003, as head of the epidemiology unit and was appointed Scientific Director in 2010. In his current role he is responsible for the overall coordination of the EMCDDA scientific work. Professor Fabrizio Schifano Professor Schifano is one of the very few physicians with training and specialist qualifications in both psychiatry and clinical pharmacology and has contributed to the biomedical science as well as the clinical science of addiction. He has also made a significant contribution to several areas in addiction psychiatry and general psychiatry, including: stimulant synthetic drugs, mortality studies (Professor Schifano co-supervises and co-leads the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths (npSAD)), the internet and drugs. This is a new area of research and Professor Schifano is the Principal Investigator of the third consecutive EU Commission-funded, multi-centre Psychonaut/ReDNet research programme. Results from these studies have provided the only comprehensive and multilingual analysis of the information available online on psychoactive compounds to date.