Kenneth Blum, Ph.D., DHL

Founding President

Dr. Kenneth Blum, B.Sc. (Pharmacy), M.Sc., PhD, DHL- received his PhD in Neuropharmacology from New York Medical College and is a graduate from Columbia University and New Jersey College of Medicine. He trained at the Institute of Behavioral Genetics, Colorado University at Boulder, Colorado. He also received a doctor of humane letters from St Martins University. He has published over 500 abstracts, peer– reviewed articles and books (16). He has been the recipient of many grants and awards including a Life-Time Achievement in Addiction Medicine (Holistic Institute on Addiction Studies); Marquis Who Who’s Life –Time Achievement Award, and Presidential Award for Scientific Excellence (National Council of Alcohol & Drug Abuse Councilors), Scientific Achievement Award (City of Life Miami) and Best Abstract (2012) Award ASRA (Pain); Path Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award (2014) and Honorary Full Professor (Eötvös Loránd University, Institute of Psychology, Budapest, Hungary) and American Society of Addiction Medicine Millennium Laboratory Award among many others. He coined the term “Reward Deficiency Syndrome “in 1995 now in Microsoft Dictionary, Gates Scientific dictionary and featured in SAGE Encyclopedia of Abnormal Psychology (2017). Currently he serves as Editor-in-chief of Journal of Reward Deficiency Syndrome & Addiction Science (Editor-in-chief), Co-EIC Neuroimaging in Psychiatry & Neurology, and is on the editorial board of 18 other scientific journals. As the lead author on the first genetic association of a dopaminergic gene with severe alcoholism, he is considered by some as the “Father of Psychiatric Genetics”. He is the holder of many U.S. and foreign patents involving nutrigenomics. He is the lead author of a new Springer Neuroscience Brief book on the 12 Steps -entitled “Molecular Neurobiology of Addiction Recovery.” Dr. Blum along with Mark Gold (St. Louis) and Philip Gorwood (Paris) has been named Editor-In Chief of Frontiers of Bioscience Special Issue on Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS). Dr. Blum is an adjunct Professor, in both the Department of Psychiatry at University of Florida College of Medicine and McKnight Brain Institute and the University of Vermont. He is Adjunct Full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California and Adjunct Full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Wright University Boonshoft School of Medicine, Dayton, Ohio. He also serves as Neuroscience advisor to many companies and foundations including Dominion Diagnostics (Chief Scientific Adviser), Path Foundation NY (Director of Science), Victory Nutrition, Impact Genomics, Shores Treatment & Recovery Center (Neuroscience Advisor) and Nupathways. He currently serves as Chairman of the board of Geneus Health, San Antonio, Texas. He is Emeritus Faculty of The Institute of Applied Genomics and Biotechnology, Nagpur, India. Major media outlets worldwide have covered his work on addiction. He is currently serving as President and CEO of IGENE, LLC, Austin Texas and Founding President United Science Group (USG). Dr. Blum is working on the first ever Genetic Addiction Risk Score (GARS) in conjunction with Geneus Health and Dominion Diagnostics. He is a frequent contributor to Sober World and Addiction Professional magazines. In conjunction with Merlene Miller and David Miller they just published their award winning book “Staying Clean and Sober”. He is a sought after speaker on a global basis for insights into RDS and genetics. He has published in almost every major peer review journal in the world including Science, Nature, Lancet, JAMA, JAMA Psychiatry, PNAS, Plus One, Oncotarget, Cureus, psychopharmacology, molecular neurobiology, amongst many prestigious journals. His work has been featured in every major newspaper, magazine and television worldwide. He is indeed the father of Amino-Acid Therapy for Reward Deficiency Syndrome developing Pro –Dopamine Regulation to induce “dopamine Homeostasis “coupled with genetic testing for Personalized Addiction Medicine.