Albert Batalla Cases

Albert Batalla was born in Barcelona (Spain), where he completed the Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery in 2001, being granted with the Extraordinary Award of Bachelor (Autonomous University of Barcelona). He completed the training as psychiatrist (2012) and his PhD on the relationship between cannabis and psychosis (2014) at the Hospital Clinic de Barcelona (University of Barcelona). As pre-doctoral researcher at the Fundació Clínic per a la Recerca Biomèdica (FCRB) he studied the impact of addiction (focusing on cannabis) on the outcome of psychotic disorders, cognitive control and brain volume, revealing gene-environment interactions that play a role in the sensitivity to the effects of cannabis on the brain.
 
In 2014 he moved to the Netherlands, where he started working as a psychiatrist in Tactus Addiction Treatment and temporarily as postdoc at FCRB. Since 2018 he works at the Diagnosis and Early Psychosis Unit at the UMC Utrecht, where he leads the Care Program Substance Use. His primary goal is prevention and integration of addiction treatment, while enhancing patient participation, education (e.g. Outpatient Clinic Medical Cannabis in Psychiatry) and translational and innovative research, like the study of cannabinoids, psychedelics, eHealth and lifestyle interventions.

Albert is since 2020 chairman of the Addiction Section of the Dutch Psychiatric Association (NVvP), and since 2022 board member of the Addiction Section of the European Psychiatric Association (EPA). He is also senior lecturer at two nationwide postgraduate degrees in addiction at the Radboudumc (the Dutch Training in Addiction Medicine, NOVA; and the Addiction Psychiatry Course for specialists in psychiatry, Leertraject Verslavingspsychiatrie), and is involved in several teaching activities, including several curricula at the UMCU (Medicine, Biomedical Sciences, Master neuroscience and cognition, Pharmacy, Psychiatry training), masterclasses and courses in the Netherlands (e.g. Psyfar, RINO Groep) and abroad (e.g. Ekademeia). He is involved in international projects (e.g. ENIGMA consortium), has published several articles, book chapters, and is a reviewer of international journals.