scientific advisory board
- George F. Koob, Ph.D. Chairman
- Bernhard Bettler, Ph.D.
- Arthur Christopoulos, Ph.D.
- Mark A. Geyer, Ph.D.
- Barbara J. Mason, Ph.D.
George F. Koob, Ph.D. Chairman
Dr. Koob is an expert in neurobiology of drug dependence and psychiatric disorders. He has over 30 years experience in the development of preclinical models of drug reinforcement, drug craving and withdrawal for substances including alcohol, nicotine and numerous illicit drugs. Dr. Koob is also recognized as an expert in the neuropharmacology of stress and anxiety disorders. He has trained more than 60 post doctoral fellows and graduate students and is an author of over 600 scientific publications. Dr. Koob is Professor and Chairman of the Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California. He also is an adjunct Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Psychiatry and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy at the University of California San Diego.
Bernhard Bettler, Ph.D.
Dr. Bettler has extensive expertise in mental health disorders, neurotransmitter receptors and drug discovery, including the identification and development of allosteric modulators of GPCRs. Since 2001 he has been full professor and head of the Institute of Physiology, Medical Faculty of the University of Basel. He also serves as a co-director of the Neurosciences Focus Area at the Department of Clinical-Biological Sciences, a joint Department of the Medical Faculty, the University Hospital Basel and the Children’s Hospital States of Basel-Stadt and Basel-Land. In 1994, to Ciba (now Novartis), where he was program team head of drug discovery projects in the Nervous System Department. He then worked in the Biotechnology Department of Ciba in Basel and at the Salk Institute in San Diego, California. Dr. Bettler received a Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 1986.
Arthur Christopoulos, Ph.D
Dr. Christopoulos is a leader in the fields of allosteric regulation of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and analytical pharmacology. He has published extensively on approaches for detecting and quantifying the effects of allosteric modulators on GPCRs, as well as more general methods for quantifying drug-receptor interactions. He is currently Professor of Pharmacology and co-Director of the Drug Discovery Biology Laboratory, Monash University, and a Senior Research Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. He obtained his PhD from the Victorian College of Pharmacy, Australia, prior to postdoctoral work at the University of Minnesota and subsequent appointment as a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Mark A. Geyer, Ph.D.
Dr. Geyer is a Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences and Vice Chair for Scientific Affairs in the Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego. He is the Director of the Neuro-psychopharmacology Unit of the Veteran’s Administration VISN 22 MIRECC and a major contributor to both the MATRICS and TURNS programs funded by NIMH to advance treatments for cognition in schizophrenia. Dr. Geyer is a specialist in the neurobiology and psychopharmacology of psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and drug dependence. He is one of the foremost authorities on preclinical models of psychiatric disorders, especially schizophrenia. Dr. Geyer is a scientific advisor to several major pharmaceutical companies and is an author of more than 350 scientific publications.
Barbara J. Mason, PhD
Dr. Mason is a Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Clinical Psychopharmacology in the Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders and Co-Director of The Pearson Center for Alcoholism and Addiction Research at The Scripps Research Institute and is an expert in clinical development of medications for alcohol dependence. She served as overall principal investigator for the first US study of acamprosate as a novel treatment of alcohol dependence, which was conducted in 21 centers across the United States. Dr. Mason’s work in medication development to prevent relapse in alcohol dependence has been recognized with a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health. She is currently pursuing a program of NIAAA- and NIDA-funded research that includes human laboratory studies to rapidly screen potential relapse prevention medications and clinical trials to evaluate the safety and efficacy of novel medications to prevent relapse in individuals with alcohol and/or cannabis dependence.