SCIENTISTS

Our current team of core investigators includes leading scientists and physicians in the areas of genetics, neuroscience, psychiatry, and therapeutics.

Chief Scientist

Robert Malenka
M.D., Ph.D.

Professor of Psychiatry, Stanford University
 National Academy of Sciences
National Academy of Medicine

Dr. Robert C. Malenka is the Pritzker Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Director of the Nancy Pritzker Laboratory and Deputy Director of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. He is a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College, and received his M.D. and Ph.D. in neuroscience from Stanford University School of Medicine, completing his residency in psychiatry at Stanford and his postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Dr. Malenka’s findings have been published in ~300 research papers in leading science journals (H-index ~150; ~92,000 citations). He has also co-authored a textbook entitled Molecular Neuropharmacology: A Foundation for Clinical Neuroscience (McGraw Hill, 3rd edition, 2015). His many years of investigation have produced a number of hypotheses that provide the foundation for much of the research in many of the world’s laboratories that study how neurons communicate with one another and how this communication is modified during learning and by experience. His laboratory continues to conduct cutting edge research on the molecular mechanisms of neural communication as well as the role of synaptic dysfunction in brain disorders including addiction, autism, and depression.