New CMSRU graduate studies brain’s role in mental disorders

As a young teenager, Jonathan Kanen realized the brain is “all we are” and became captivated by the concept. Now, he has turned that early fascination into an impressive academic career.

When Kanen graduates from Cooper Medical School of Rowan University (CMSRU) on Thursday, May 11, he will already have another professional credential: a PhD. The budding psychiatrist-neuroscientist earned his doctorate in psychology at the University of Cambridge between his second and third educational years at CMSRU.

“Medical school was absolutely the right place for me, but I realized I was curious enough about the brain basis of mental illness, with enough questions going through my head, that I could do a PhD,” says Kanen, who started at CMSRU in 2015 and returned there from the U.K. about six years later.

He believes that having both an MD and PhD will better position him to conduct scientific research that can help people – including his own future patients.

“I feel strongly we need people who can bridge those two worlds,” Kanen explains. “I hope to do clinical work that is complemented by neuroscience and vice versa.”

Getting a PhD in the middle of medical school involved “going with my instincts,” notes Kanen. “It felt like something I needed to do, and I couldn’t be more glad that I did.”

He had company, too. “Numerous other American medical students were doing PhDs at Cambridge at the same time, which felt really nice,” said the 35-year-old.

Rowan’s first Gates Scholar

Kanen holds a unique position at CMSRU and Rowan: He is the University’s first recipient of the Gates Cambridge Scholarship. This highly selective award, sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is comparable to the Rhodes Scholarship. It includes full academic funding, a stipend, and important opportunities for collaboration and connection.

“It took a great deal of initiative and hard work for Jonathan to complete his PhD during medical school, and then come back and earn an MD degree,” says Annette C. Reboli, MD, dean of CMSRU. “We are incredibly proud and look forward to seeing him advance the study and treatment of mental health and brain disorders. I know he will have a significant impact.”

The future physician also had early inspiration at home in Ridgewood, N.J. His parents are both psychologists, and his younger sister became one.

“We have always been pretty attuned to how people behave,” Kanen observes. “My dad had an unusual number of books about the brain in the house, so the role of brains was around.” 

Sharing knowledge

The co-author of 17 peer-reviewed publications, Kanen has already contributed significantly to scientific understanding of mental illness and potential treatments. His research focuses on the brain mechanisms involved in compulsive behavior, drug addiction, emotions and memory.

At Cambridge, he explored how the brain chemical serotonin affects processes relevant to obsessive-compulsive disorder and substance use disorders. This knowledge can lead to more effective psychotherapy and medications, explains Kanen, whose work has appeared in Journal of Neuroscience, JAMA Open Network, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among other scholarly outlets.

He also earned the unusual opportunity to give educational talks for physicians while still a student, presenting four “grand rounds” at Cooper University Health Care, CMSRU’s clinical partner.

“Part of being a researcher is dissemination of one’s work, and I have tried to do this in multiple ways,” says Kanen, who has nearly 800 citations on Google Scholar.

In fact, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Kanen gave virtual talks to people around the world, from Kyoto to Copenhagen, Dublin to Jerusalem to Berkeley.

He also won a post-doctoral research fellowship at Cambridge, extending his research activities for another year.

‘Very fortunate’

At CMRSU, Kanen has appreciated opportunities to work directly with patients and give back to the community. He cites the school’s supportive culture, and the faculty’s enthusiasm for teaching in clinical settings.

“I feel very fortunate to have attended CMSRU,” he says. “I am in awe of the school’s commitment to the community and am continually impressed by how attuned the clinicians are to the challenges in Camden.”  

Kanen especially enjoyed participating in “Street Medicine,” a service-learning program in which medical students reach out to Camden’s homeless community. He helped distribute necessities like water, socks, snacks, and hygiene products, as well as the opioid-overdose medication naloxone. 

“I’ve gotten to see illness literally from a different angle. You’re up close, seeing people struggling with addiction, and what it looks like for someone to be living on the street in Camden,” says Kanen, who also tutored and coached Little League baseball in the city.

Kanen has also continued to pursue another passion that started in childhood: playing the saxophone. While at Cambridge, he performed with the university’s jazz orchestra and won the school’s jazz prize. He also led his own band, and played at the Cambridge International Jazz Festival and London jazz clubs. At CMSRU, Kanen has performed at the white coat ceremony and fundraisers.

Prior to starting medical school, he enjoyed a different kind of international adventure. Kanen spent about seven months working as a cruise ship musician, visiting 25 countries between Japan and Spain. 

Looking ahead

Kanen’s next stop is closer to home: residency in a psychiatry/physician-scientist program at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

The program, which was his first choice, combines a psychiatry residency with an increasing amount of research over four years.

“Mount Sinai has an excellent track record of fostering the development of physician-scientists in psychiatry,” he says.

After residency, he hopes to land an assistant professorship at an academic medical center, where he can both see patients and conduct research.

Another goal is to help reduce the stigma surrounding mental illnesses, which affect more than one in five U.S. adults.

Shame and misunderstanding can prevent people from getting the help they need, even adversely affecting their overall medical care, Kanen explains.

“So many people have a mental-health condition but are afraid to talk about it,” he says. “If more people talk about it, misconceptions will be diminished, and more people will hopefully seek treatment and help others seek treatment.”

Every spring, Rowan University highlights one graduating senior from each school and college. Read more stories about this year’s featured graduates. 

For a sampling of Kanen’s research, view his papers originally published in Psychopharmacology, Molecular Psychiatry, and Psychological Medicine.