Bruce McEwen Lifetime Achievement AwardThe Bruce McEwen Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes lifetime contributions to psychoneuroendocrinology and related disciplines, honoring outstanding scientists whose work has advanced our understanding of brain-body interactions. 
Renamed in 2020 in honor of psychoneuroendocrinology pioneer Bruce E. McEwen. About the AwardThe International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology (ISPNE) has awarded the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award since 2000 to a distinguished line of outstanding scientists in the field of psychoneuroendocrinology. The award was renamed in 2020 to honor Bruce E. McEwen, a pioneer in psychoneuroendocrinology. Bruce McEwen himself received the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. 2026 Nominations Now OpenAll ISPNE members are invited to submit nominations for the Bruce McEwen Lifetime Achievement Award. Nominations should include the nominee’s name and a brief statement of support. The deadline for 2026 nominations is May 15, 2026. 2025 Award Recipient
Robert Dantzer, Ph.D.University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Dr. Robert Dantzer has been awarded the 2025 Bruce McEwen Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology. The award recognizes his extraordinary legacy in psychoneuroendocrinology, including his scientific contributions to immune-to-brain communication and his decades of leadership in shaping the Society’s journals and the field more broadly. Editorial Leadership and Service to the FieldDr. Dantzer is receiving this award in recognition of a legacy of achievements in psychoneuroendocrinology, including 30 years as Editor-in-Chief of the Society’s flagship journal, Psychoneuroendocrinology, and his ongoing contributions as founding Editor-in-Chief of Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology. As part of this award, Dr. Dantzer will present a plenary talk at the annual conference in New Orleans on September 3, entitled “Mind-Body Interactions: What I Learned from Psychoneuroendocrinology and How It Helped Me to Discover Immune-to-Brain Communication Pathways.” It is no coincidence that Dr. Dantzer is receiving this Lifetime Achievement Award on the 50th anniversary of the journal’s inception in 1975. He spearheaded the journal’s success for more than 30 years and continues to be pivotal for its continuation as consulting editor. Of this outstanding role, Dr. Dantzer has remarked: “I have had the privilege of discovering ISPNE and living in its intimacy for 30 years through its official journal, Psychoneuroendocrinology. It has been a fascinating journey, during which I have learned a great deal.” Many contributors to psychoneuroendocrinology know the names of Dr. Dantzer and Dr. Rose-Marie Bluthé through communications that have elated generations of authors with the critical yet understated phrase, “I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been accepted for publication.” Behind the scenes, Robert and Rose-Marie have helped shape the field toward rigorous, translational, and clinically significant work on brain-body interactions. These efforts have mentored generations of scholars across career stages. Dr. Dantzer has described this behind-the-scenes daily work as deeply fulfilling: “As a person, what is important to me is to give back what I have received by helping others to achieve their goals.” Scientific ContributionsDr. Dantzer’s career encompasses a broad and influential legacy. He received his DVM in Veterinary Medicine from the University Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France, in 1967, one year before ISPNE was formed in 1968. By 1971, he had completed his Dr. 3rd cycle at the University Paris VI in Paris, and in 1977 he received his Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University Paul Sabatier in Toulouse. Soon thereafter, he became Director of Research 2nd Class at the Laboratory of Veterinary Pharmacology in Toulouse, then at the University of Bordeaux, and later at the French National Institute of Medical Research (INSERM) in Bordeaux. Throughout the 1980s, he bridged the emerging disciplines of psychoneuroendocrinology and psychoneuroimmunology, illustrating the profound impact of stress on the body and showing that communication between the brain and the immune and endocrine systems is bidirectional. From 1990 until 2006, Dr. Dantzer headed the Laboratory of Integrative Neurobiology in Bordeaux, which became a leading laboratory in the study of cytokine production and action in the brain and its impact on behavior. In 2006, he moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to lead a program in immunology and behavior before moving, in 2012, to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to study the pathophysiology of fatigue and other cancer-related symptoms. Legacy and ImpactRobert Dantzer has published more than 400 peer-reviewed articles, more than 100 book chapters, and 15 books, both edited and written. He has been cited nearly 70,000 times, with an H-index that outpaces the triple-digit temperatures of a summer in Texas, his home since 2012. Published in Nature and cited more than 8,000 times, his 2008 review, “From inflammation to sickness and depression: when the immune system subjugates the brain,” elegantly summarizes Dr. Dantzer’s overarching contributions to psychoneuroendocrinology. It provides a compassionate and accessible understanding of physiology in those suffering from depression. Infections and other immune challenges make people sick and change their behavior, with many such sickness behaviors caused by the immune system. It is easy to understand how altering behavior when fighting infection is adaptive. Dr. Dantzer’s lifetime of work has illustrated that it is similarly adaptive to alter behavior when those immune pathways are activated during depression. His work reveals the depth to which he has investigated neuroendocrine-immune pathways across translational animal models and clinical populations. It shows empathy for patient populations dealing with depressive episodes or chronic illness, revealing that the depressive component can last longer than acute illness and may become a consequence of decompensation in mechanisms that regulate sickness. This research has helped individuals struggling with depression understand it as a physical condition and has similarly helped those coping with chronic illnesses and health challenges such as cancer understand that mood states may be affected by underlying biological processes. It is with enthusiasm and deep honor that ISPNE presents the 2025 Bruce McEwen Lifetime Achievement Award to Dr. Robert Dantzer. Previous Lifetime Achievement Award Winners
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