Bio
Igor D. Bandeira, M.D., Ph.D., is a physician-scientist from Salvador in Brazil, working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He completed his Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) at the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil), where he received the prestigious Professor Alfredo Thomé de Britto Award for outstanding graduate scientific research. Part of his medical training took place at the University of Sydney (Australia) through a Science Without Borders Scholarship. In parallel with his formal graduate training, he worked as a researcher at the university’s Brain and Mind Centre during this period. As an attending physician, Dr. Bandeira acquired further clinical experience at the Brazilian Ministry of Health. Furthermore, during the pandemic, Dr. Bandeira worked on the Brazilian frontline in the fight against Covid-19. With respect to research, he has several years’ experience applying noninvasive brain stimulation techniques in the fields of neurology and psychiatry. During his Ph.D. at the Federal University of Bahia, Dr. Bandeira has also acquired expertise in developing clinical trials to test the efficacy of rapid-acting antidepressants. His work involved using ketamine and its enantiomers (e.g., esketamine and arketamine) for treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and bipolar depression. Since he arrived at Stanford, he has built on his previous training in clinical trials by leading (A) the Wellcome LEAP multisite accelerated intermittent theta burst stimulation (Stanford Neuromodulation Therapy) trial for anhedonic depression and co-leading (B) a trial testing the efficacy and safety of buprenorphine in sustaining the anti-suicide properties of ketamine.
