Professor Dan Siskind - Queensland Advancing Clinical Research Fellowship recipient

Photo of Prof Dan Siskind
Photo of Professor Dan Siskind

From Brisbane to Boston and back again, bringing home an unwavering love of baseball and a Harvard degree, Professor Dan Siskind is continuing to hit home runs.

In collaboration with Metro South Hospital and Health Service, The University of Queensland’s Professor Siskind has received a $400,000 Queensland Advancing Clinical Research Fellowship grant to help Queenslanders with schizophrenia live longer and healthier lives.

People with severe mental illness die almost 20 years earlier than the general population, mostly due to avoidable illnesses like diabetes and heart disease that can be related to antipsychotic medications and lifestyle factors. Professor Siskind is committed to developing new approaches to reduce this mortality gap.

The grant will be used to conduct a world first clinical trial investigating the efficacy of semaglutide, an existing diabetes drug, to help improve the cardiometabolic outcomes in people with schizophrenia, who are also obese. The four-year project will build on a previous pilot study showing that these medications can assist in reducing weight and improving metabolic profiles of people with schizophrenia.

Yogi Berra, of New York Yankees fame, said that baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical. Poor maths aside, the same is true for health. Striking the right balance between a patient’s mental and physical health is an ever-growing issue that medical researchers are working hard to address.

Inspired by questions asked by his patients, Professor Siskind is committed to researching innovative solutions to meet both the physical and psychological health needs of schizophrenia patients and improve their overall quality of life.


Professor Siskind works as a psychiatrist at Queensland Health’s Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, Australia. His research interests include treatment refractory schizophrenia, clozapine and the cardiometabolic comorbidities of schizophrenia. He has over 150 publications and over $11 million AUD in competitive research grants.

The Queensland Advancing Clinical Research Fellowships (CRF) program delivers on a key commitment by Queensland Health in the Queensland Advancing Health Research 2026 Strategy (PDF 6625 kB), “to design, develop and fund new fellowships programs with a clear focus on translation into clinical practice and improved health outcomes”. Open to Queensland Health doctors, nurses, dentists, allied health practitioners and clinical scientists, the program recognises that clinician researchers are uniquely placed to identify clinical issues that can benefit from further research, lead patient focussed research discoveries and facilitate improved patient care through research translation.

Last updated: 31 July 2023