Obituary Professor Dr. Werner M. Herrmann

On May 6, 2002, Werner Martin Herrmann, MD, Professor of Clinical Psychophysiology, Department of Psychiatry, Freie Universität Berlin, died at the untimely age of 60 after an operation. This is not only a great loss to his family, friends and the academic staff of the Berlin University, but also to many scientific societies around the world and specifically to the journal Pharmacopsychiatry, where he was Co-Editor of the Section Neuropsychophysiology for many years. Last but not least, his death will be felt with regret in economic circles, since as an advisor to the contract research organization Parexel Clinical Pharmacology International and founding shareholder and CEO of Somnologics, a corporation for electronics in health care, Werner M. Herrmann always tried to transfer scientific knowledge to fields outside the university and apply it in clinical practice.

During his much too short life he gathered valuable experience in general clinical pharmacology, CNS pharmacology including sleep research, experimental pain models and pharmacopsychology. He participated actively as clinical investigator in numerous phase I to III studies, in 75 of them as principal investigator. His expertise covered a broad field, ranging from psychopharmacological methodology to pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and even non-invasive cardiology.

Werner M. Herrmann was born on June 4, 1941 in Bardenberg/Aachen, Germany. He achieved his MD in 1968 and his PhD in 1969 from the University of Bonn, Germany. He became a scientific assistant at the Department of Molecular Biology at the Max-Planck Institute in Göttingen in 1970. He moved to the Department of Clinical Research at Schering AG, Berlin in 1971 where he was engaged with establishing a research group for clinical neuropsychopharmacology. When the latter developed into a section, Werner M. Herrmann was appointed its head. He came to the Department of Psychiatry at the Missouri Institute of Psychiatry in St. Louis, Missouri in 1973, where I met him and worked together with him at the Section of Clinical Neurophysiology and Psychopharmacology, headed by T.M. Itil. After his return to Schering Berlin in 1974, Werner M. Herrmann was responsible for CNS Clinical Research worldwide. In 1979, he was appointed Head of the Psychiatry and Neurology Branch, Department of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology, Institute for Drugs and Medicinal Products (BGA), Federal Health Office, Berlin (West), where he served until 1981.

His academic career developed from university lecturer (1981) to full professor with part-time tenure (1987) at the Freie Universität Berlin. From 1983 to 1994 he was a visiting professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 1987 he was appointed Professor of Psychophysiology and Head of the Laboratory of Clinical Psychophysiology, Department of Clinical Psychiatry, Benjamin Franklin Hospital, a position he held until his death. During his career, Werner M. Herrmann published 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals and 22 chapters in books and accumulated more than 500 presentations and abstracts.

In 1982, Werner M. Herrmann became a co-founder, CEO and President of AFB Arzneimittelforschung GmbH in Berlin, a CRO with phase I - III and biometrics/data management units, which later merged with Parexel International Corporation, Boston, where he was a member of the Board of Directors and then the general manager, chief scientific officer and finally senior vice president until his retirement in 2001. Nothing can better characterize his drive and commitment than his involvement in the foundation of Somnologics, a corporation for electronics in health care with special emphasis on hard- and software development for sleep function analysis, immediately after his retirement. Moreover, in 2001 he became a founding shareholder of our joint endeavor The Siesta Group Schlafanalyse GmbH, whose aim is to perform and analyze studies on human sleep and develop software tools and appliances to measure and analyze sleep-related data in order to create standards for studies on human sleep.

Werner M. Herrmann was a member of a number of societies and committees, including the German Society of Neurophysiology, the German Working Group of Neuropsychopharmacology (AGNP), the German Working Group of Clinical Pharmacology, the German Society of Pharmacology and Toxicology (DGPT), the Berlin-Brandenburg Society of Medicine and Sleep Research, the German Society of Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine, the European Sleep Research Society, the International Society for Brain Electromagnetic Topography, the International Psychogeriatric Association, the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP), the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology (CINP), the Berlin-Brandenburg Association of Clinical Pharmacology and the Brain Research Working Group. We served together in the Executive Committee of the International Pharmaco-EEG Group (IPEG), an Association for Electrophysiological Brain Research in Preclinical and Clinical Pharmacology and Related Fields, for many years. As the current President of this society I mourn not only the loss of our committed Member-at-Large but also of our diligent Co-Editor of the Section of Pharmacoelectroencephalography of the Journal Neuropsychobiology. In addition to the mentioned co-editorships of Neuropsychobiology and Pharmacopsychiatry, Werner M. Herrmann was on the editorial board of the Zeitschrift für Klinische Neurophysiologie and Somnologie.

Werner M. Herrmann was an active and cheerful man interested in life, culture, music and fine arts. He was a devoted father, husband and friend, who established contacts with different people from all over the world and was equally liked by colleagues and patients. His decease is a big loss to all of us, and we will remember him for his multi-faceted personality and numerous achievements.

Prof. Dr. Bernd Saletu, Vienna[*]