Sir Robin MacGregor Murray (born 1944) is Professor of Psychiatric Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College, London, United Kingdom.[1]. He also sees patients with schizophrenia and bipolar illness at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust. He is originally from Glasgow.
He is part of The Psychosis Research Group, one of the largest outside the USA. It uses a range of methods to improve understanding and treatment of psychotic illnesses, particularly schizophrenia. For the 1997-2007 decade Murray was ranked 8th most influential researcher in psychiatry by Thomson Reuters' Science Watch,[2] and 3rd in schizophrenia research.[3]
In 1994 he was the President of the European Association of Psychiatrists; now the European Psychiatric Association. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and also a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.[1] Murray is one of two Editors of Psychological Medicine.[4]
In 2009 Murray had a public disagreement with David Nutt in the pages of The Guardian about the dangers of cannabis in triggering psychosis.[5] Murray previously wrote that while the risk increase is "about five-fold [...] for the heaviest users", the issue has become political football.[3] Murray has commented repeatedly on these issues in BBC articles and programmes,[6][7][8] including in the Panorama documentary on BBC One.[9][10] He has also been critical of the proposed use of cannabis for its anti-depressive effects as a "very big leap of faith" based solely on preclinical data.[11]
Murray was knighted in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to medicine.[12]