Advisory boards

Board of directors

Howard L. Fields, MD, PhD

Professor and vice chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of California at San Francisco; director of the Wheeler Center for the Neurobiology of Addiction; and principal investigator of the Earnest Gallo Clinic and Research Center.

One of the foremost clinician scientists in pain and addiction research, Dr. Fields has authored over 300 research publications, book chapters, and reviews, and is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including election to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Jacob R. Glaser

President of MBF Bioscience, Inc.

Mr. Glaser is a founder of MBF Bioscience which is the premier worldwide leader of morphometric quantification based upon the development of Neurolucida and Stereo Investigator software which are the most popular and widely cited platforms for quantification in neuroscience. MBF Bioscience has divisions in the United States, Europe, Japan, and China serving over 1000 laboratories. Voted several times as the Vermont Small Business Man of the Year by the USA Small Business Administration, Mr. Glaser also serves on the board of directors of the Vermont Bioscience Alliance and Vermont Technology Council and has successfully competed for numerous NIH SBIR awards.

Christer Köhler, PhD

Vice president of innovative medicines at AstraZeneca (retired); board of directors of Akloma Bioscience and Stockholm Brain Institute.

With nearly 200 scientific publications in neuroscience, Dr. Köhler has also served as vice president and global head of CNS Research at Hoffman Laroche, CNS Discovery Area at Astra Arcus, as well as CNS and Pain Research and Discovery Research at AstraZeneca.

Frank Porreca, PhD

Professor and former associate department head of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Arizona.

A world leader in preclinical research on pain and drug addiction, Dr. Porreca has over 400 peer reviewed publications and has received numerous prestigious awards for his research, including an NIH Merit Award. He chairs and heads a number of societies and conferences and is the founder of the Spring Brain Research Conference. Dr. Porreca has extensive collaborations with various pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and serves on the advisory board of NeurAxon.

Scientific advisory board

David O. Carpenter, MD

Director of the Institute for Health and Environment of the University at Albany. Former director of the New York State Department of Health Wadsworth Center. 

With over 400 peer reviewed publications, books, and reviews, Dr. Carpenter has a distinguish career beginning with research in neuroscience, for which he received a Jacob Javitts Award, and transitioning into epidemiological research on the relationship between the environment and human disease as the former director of the New York State Department of Health Wadsworth Center and dean of the School of Public Health at the University at Albany SUNY. The Institute for Health and Environment is a collaborating center of the World Health Organization.

Immaculada Silos-Santiago, MD, PhD

Former vice president of pharmacology at Decibel Therapeutics.

With over 100 peer reviewed publications, book chapters, and reviews, Dr. Silos-Santiago has an extensive background in basic science research with seminal contributions to understanding the role of neurotrophic factors in the development and maintenance of cutaneous innervation. She has successfully translated this research to the pharmaceutical industry getting the first drug approved by the FDA for the treatment of Chronic Idiopathic Constipation and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Linzess (linaclotide). She led the team that discovered a new pathway involved in visceral pain and identified the mechanism of action of linaclotide in reducing the pain associated with IBS. She has transitioned to senior management positions—from director of pain, urology, and neurobiology programs at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, director of in vivo pharmacology at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, senior director of pharmacology at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, to her position of vice president of pharmacology at Decibel Therapeutics. Among her many honors is the O’Leary Prize for Research in Neuroscience.