Internationally renowned psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dan Stein, elected to TWAS in 2016, passed away on 6 December 2025 at the age of 63. Stein was the chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and the director of the South African Medical Research Council’s Unit on Risk and Resilience in Mental Disorders. He also served as the scientific director of the University of Cape Town Neuroscience Institute. His scientific interests spanned several related fields, including anxiety and related disorders, obsessive-compulsive spectrum conditions, and post‑traumatic stress disorder. 
He authored more than 1,000 publications across the fields of basic neuroscience, clinical research, and public mental health. Over three decades, he made substantial contributions to psychiatric research in South Africa and internationally. Between 1994 and 2005, while directing the South African Medical Research Council Unit on Anxiety & Stress Disorders at Stellenbosch University, he built innovative programmes in brain imaging and neurogenetics. The South African Stress and Health Study, which he led, became the first nationally representative mental health survey in Africa. He received the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology’s (CIMP) Max Hamilton Award (2002) for his contributions to psychopharmacology, as well as CIMP's Ethics in Psychopharmacology Award (2010).