Igor Grant, MD, FRCP(C)
Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry
Director, Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research
UC San Diego
Igor Grant, MD, FRCP(C) is Mary Gilman Marston Distinguished Professor of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. Since 2000, Dr. Grant has been Director of the State of California funded Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR). He is also the Director of the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Program (HNRP), which encompasses a broad range of interdisciplinary HIV studies including the California NeuroAIDS Tissue Network (CNTN), the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center (HNRC), and the CNS HIV Antiretroviral Therapy Effects Research (CHARTER). Dr. Grant is the founding Editor of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society and founding co-editor of the journal AIDS and Behavior.
Alexandros Makriyannis, PhD
Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chemistry, and Chemical Biology
George Behrakis Trustee Chair in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology
Director of the Center for Drug Discovery
Northeastern University
Alexandros Makriyannis holds the George Behrakis Trustee Chair in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology at Northeastern University and is Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chemistry, and Chemical Biology and Director of Center for Drug Discovery. He obtained his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry and completed his post-doctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley. He moved to the University of Connecticut where he rose to the rank of Distinguished Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and Pharmocology. In 2005, he joined Northeastern University and established a Center for Drug Discovery. Dr. Makriyannis has spent the past four decades inventing and applying chemical, biochemical, and biophysical approaches to study the endocannabinoid system and exploring its therapeutic potential. He is known as a pioneer in Chemical Biology. A particular focus of his work has been the discovery and profiling of novel therapeutic candidates for addiction disorders, metabolic disorders, and pain. His results are described in 600 publications and over 40 patents. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including the AAPS Award in Drug Design and Discovery (2002), the ICRS Mechoulam Life Achievement Award in Cannabinoid Research (2006), the ACS Research Lifetime Acheivement Award in Medicinal Chemistry (2012), the ACS Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame (2013), the AAPS Distinguished Pharmaceutical Scientist Award (2015), the CPDD Nathan B. Eddy Memorial Award (2018), and ICRS President’s Lecture (2019).
Mark Ware, MBBS, MSc, MRCP
Alan Edwards Chair in Clinical Pain and Associate Professor of Family Medicine at McGill University
Director, Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit, Montreal General Hospital, McGill University Health Centre (MUHC)
Dr. Ware received his medical degree from the University of the West Indies in 1992. After postgraduate training in internal medicine and research on the painful crisis of sickle cell disease in Jamaica, he completed an MSc in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1999. He then moved to Montreal as a research assistant and practiced pain management at the MUHC from 2001 to 2018, attaining the rank of tenured associate professor at McGill. His primary research interest was evaluating the safety and efficacy of cannabis in pain management and developing large cohorts of pain patients to identify patterns of care and risk factors for response to treatment. He was a co-founder of the non-profit Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids and served as Executive Director from 2007 to 2018. He has advised the Canadian federal government on cannabis policy since 2001. In 2016, he served as the vice-chair of the Federal Task Force on the Legalization and Regulation of Cannabis in Canada; the report became Canadian Law as the Cannabis Act in October 2018. From 2018 to 2022, Dr. Ware served as Chief Medical Officer of Canopy Growth Corporation. In this capacity he helped establish the Company's global medical division and led the teams responsible for the supply and regulatory documentation, clinical development, medical affairs and global product safety. Dr. Ware practices pain medicine at the Montreal General Hospital. Dr. Ware has received research funding from the CIHR and salary support up the level of chercheur-boursier clinicien senior from the FRSQ. He teaches clinical pain management, including pharmacology, complementary approaches to chronic pain and the neurobiology of pain. His research has focused on the safety, efficacy and effectiveness of cannabis and cannabinoids in pain and symptom management. His educational work is focused on improving pain education at all level of the medical curriculum (undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing medical education). Current interests include the use of music as a therapy for chronic pain and optimizing the interdisciplinary management of pain using innovative digital technologies.
Marilyn Huestis, AB, MS, PhD
Professor
Senior Fellow at Thomas Jefferson University
Science & Policy Advisor at Pinney Associates
President of Huestis & Smith Toxicology, LLC
Professor Dr. (h.c.) Marilyn A. Huestis conducted controlled drug administration studies at NIDA for 23 years. She is Senior Science and Policy Advisor for PinneyAssociates, Adjunct Professor, Thomas Jefferson University, University New Mexico, and Queen Mary University of London and President of Huestis & Smith Toxicology, LLC. Her research focuses on cannabinoid agonists, kratom/mitragynine, psilocybin, in utero drug exposure and impaired driving. She published 560 peer-reviewed manuscripts. Her bachelor's degree is in biochemistry, master's degree in clinical chemistry, doctoral degree in toxicology and Doctor Honoris Causa in Medicine and Surgery from University of Helsinki. Other recent awards include the 2023 Mechoulam Lifetime Award for cannabinoid research from ICRS, 2021 AACC Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award, 2021 National Safety Council Distinguished Service to Safety Award and many others. The journal Clinical Chemistry featured her as an “Inspiring Mind.” She currently serves on the World Anti-doping Agency’s Prohibited List Committee. She is past president of the Society of Forensic Toxicologists, past Chair of the Toxicology Section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and past president of The International Association of Forensic Toxicologists. She is most proud of the success and accomplishments of her former doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows.
Margaret (Meg) Haney, PhD
Professor of Neurobiology (in Psychiatry)
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Dr. Margaret (Meg) Haney is a Professor of Neurobiology (in Psychiatry) at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. As the Director of the Cannabis Research Laboratory and Co-Director of the Substance Use Research Center, Dr. Haney is internationally recognized for her expertise in cannabis and cannabinoids. Her current work focuses on: (1) conducting placebo-controlled studies testing the efficacy of potential treatment medications for Cannabis Use Disorder, and (2) testing the potential therapeutic effects of cannabis and its constituents for a range of indications, including pain and appetite-enhancement. Dr. Haney’s research has been continuously supported by the National Institute of Health since 1999. She has authored nearly 160 articles in peer-reviewed journals, 12 book chapters, is an Associate Editor for Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, is an Advisory Editor for Psychopharmacology, and co-edited Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews 2018, Cannabis and Cannabinoids: From Synapse to Society. Dr. Haney is a longstanding participant in NIH review groups and advisory councils, is an elected Fellow at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and is a past President of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (2019).
Daniele Piomelli, PhD, MD (hon)
Distinguished Professor
UC Irvine
Dr. Daniele Piomelli studied pharmacology and neuroscience with James Schwartz and Eric Kandel at Columbia University (1983-1988), and with Paul Greengard at the Rockefeller University (1988-1990). In 2000, Kandel and Greengard were awarded the Nobel Prize for contributions to physiology and medicine. After working at the INSERM in Paris and at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, with Nobel Laureate Gerald Edelman, Daniele joined the University of California, Irvine, where he is now Louise Turner Arnold Chair in Neurosciences and Distinguished Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology. Daniele is an author of 415 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Nature, Science, Nature Medicine, PNAS and Nature Neuroscience, three full-length books, and 34 patents. He founded the department of drug discovery and development at the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa (Italy), which he directed from 2007 to 2016, and three biopharmaceutical start-ups based on discoveries made in his lab. Since 2018, Daniele serves as Editor-in-Chief of Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research, the only peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the study of cannabis, its derivatives, and their endogenous counterparts in the human body. He directs the NIDA Center of Excellence ICAL (Impact of Cannabinoids Across the Lifespan) and UCI’s Center for the Study of Cannabis.
Donald I. Abrams, MD
Professor Emeritus of Medicine
UC San Francisco
Donald I. Abrams, MD is Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. He received an A.B. in Molecular Biology from Brown University and his MD from the Stanford University School of Medicine. After completing an Internal Medicine residency at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco, he became a fellow in Hematology/Oncology at the University of California San Francisco in 1980 as the AIDS epidemic was emerging. He was one the original clinician/investigators to recognize and define many early AIDS-related conditions at San Francisco General Hospital where he also served as chief of Hematology-Oncology for 14 years. Long interested in clinical trials of complementary and alternative medicine interventions for HIV/AIDS and cancer, he received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct a study of the short-term safety of cannabinoids in HIV infection in 1997. Subsequently he received grants from the University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research to complete a placebo-controlled trial of cannabis in patients with HIV-related peripheral neuropathy as well as a study evaluating vaporization as a smokeless delivery system. He conducted NIH-funded trials investigating the pharmacokinetic interaction between cannabis and opioid analgesics in chronic pain and cannabis in patients with sickle cell pain. He was a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s committee that published The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research in January 2017.
JH Atkinson, MD
Professor of Psychiatry (Emeritus)
Co-Director, Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research
UC San Diego
JH Atkinson, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry (Emeritus) at the University of California, San Diego. Since 2000 he has been a Co-Director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR). His research interests involving pharmacological and cognitive behavioral treatment of chronic pain, and neuropsychiatry aspects of HIV, have produced over 250 peer-reviewed publications.
Alexis Bakos, PhD, MPH, RN
Program Director, Division of Geriatrics and Clinical Gerontology
National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health
Ilana Braun, MD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Senior Psychiatrist, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Dr. Ilana Braun is immediate past chief of the Division of Adult Psychosocial Oncology in the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, having held the position for over a decade. She leads a program of medicinal cannabis research that includes socio-behavioral studies, investigations at the bench, and randomized clinical trials. She co-led the American Society of Clinical Oncology expert panel to generate a first-in-kind Cannabis and Cannabinoids in Adults with Cancer guideline, published in 2024.
Nicholas Butowski, MD
Professor of Neruolgical Surgery, UC San Francisco
Director of Translational Research, UC San Francisco Neuro-Oncology
Medical Director of Clinical Research Support Office, UC San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
Dr. Butowski is a neuro-oncologist who specializes in brain tumors, neuroimaging, cognitive and rehabilitative neurology, and complementary therapies for neurological disorders. He is director of clinical services in neuro-oncology and a researcher at the Brain Tumor Center. In his research, Butowski focuses on developing treatments for primary brain tumors as well as methods to ensure good quality of life for patients and to assist them in recovering from or coping with brain injury.
Joseph Califano, MD
Iris and Matthew Strauss Chancellor’s Endowed Chair and Professor in the Departments of Otolaryngology and Radiation Medicine and Applied Sciences
UC San Diego
Dr. Califano is an internationally recognized, board-certified otolaryngologist who specializes in head and neck surgical oncology, and the integration of basic, molecular biologic research in that practice. His expertise includes minimally invasive treatment of tumors of the oral cavity, larynx, pharynx, thyroid, and neck to minimize cosmetic impact and maximize function, with an interest in tumors of the skull base, mouth, salivary glands, and premalignant conditions of the upper aerodigestive tract.
Patricia Di Ciano, PhD
Independent Scientist, Institute for Mental Health & Policy Research
Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, University of Toronto
Patricia Di Ciano, PhD is a Scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the University of Toronto who is interested in understanding the effects of cannabis on objective and subjective measures. She also conducts naturalistic studies in which participants are invited to the laboratory to use their preferred legal cannabis. With eased restrictions on cannabis, the characteristics of cannabis users and the types of cannabis used has changed. There is a shift towards greater use of newer processed forms of cannabis such as edibles and vapes, and more older adults are using cannabis than ever before. Dr. Di Ciano has built a research program that investigates the impact of these newer forms of cannabis on driving, cognition, subjective experience and blood THC. She has also investigated the effects of naturalistic doses of smoked cannabis on these measures in adults over 65 years of age.
Kim Finley, PhD
Associate Research Professor, Shiley BioScience Center
San Diego State University
Dr. Finley received her Doctor of Philosophy from the Department of Medicine at UCSD and was a PostDoctoral Researcher and Staff Scientist in the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Her work has largely focused on the molecular-genetic mechanisms that regulate neural development, function and age-related degeneration. At SDSU, she leads a team of scientists who investigate the aspects of a key clearance pathway called autophagy. Her work has shown that autophagic function is critical for longevity and the long-term function of the nervous system. Pathway defects are closely associated with accelerated aging and common degenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s Disease.
Brent Forester, MD, MSc
Professor and Dr. Frances S. Arkin Chair of Psychiatry, Tufts University Medical School
Chief and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry, Tufts Medical Center
Director of Behavioral Health, Tufts Medicine
Dr. Forester is an expert in geriatric psychiatry, specializing in the treatment of older adults with depression, bipolar disorder and behavioral complications of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. His NIA funded research is focused on novel therapeutic interventions for the behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia and the effectiveness of team-based dementia care implemented within primary care medical settings.
Andrew Freedman, PhD
Chief, Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program, Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Branch
National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health
Dr. Freedman is the chief of the Epidemiology and Genomics Research Program's (EGRP) Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Branch (CTEB). He oversees EGRP's research portfolio and initiatives that focus on factors that influence cancer progression, recurrence, new primary cancers, and survival and other treatment outcomes. He is internationally recognized for his work in molecular cancer epidemiology, cancer risk prediction, pharmacoepidemiology, and the delivery of precision oncology. Dr. Freedman currently co-chairs NCI’s Cannabis and Cancer Research Interest Group (CCRIG), leading basic, clinical, and population sciences initiatives related to cannabis and cancer outcomes.
David J. Grelotti, MD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Medical Director, Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research
UC San Diego
Dr. Grelotti is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and the Medical Director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR) at the University of California San Diego. An adult and child psychiatrist, he graduated from medical school at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed residency and fellowship training at Harvard Medical School. With colleagues at the CMCR, he is conducting studies of cannabis, cannabinoids, and the endocannabinoid system in a variety of health conditions and on driving.
Steve Gust, PhD
Advisor to Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research
Dr. Gust is currently an advisor to CMCR. He has recently retired from the National Institute on Drug Abuse where he had over 30 years of experience developing and managing research programs on drug abuse and addiction, including over 20 years of managing the USG cannabis research and production programs. He has developed an extensive knowledge of the regulatory requirements for conducting research on cannabis and its constituents, including experience with the DEA and FDA. He also chaired the NIDA Cannabis Science Interest group and represented the Institute to many governmental and non-governmental organizations.
Linda Hill, MD, MPH
Distinguished Professor
Assistant Dean, School of Public Health
Department of Surgery, School of Medicine
UC San Diego
Dr. Hill is a Professor and Founding Faculty member and Assistant Dean of the HWSPH. She is the Medical Director of the UCSD Training, Research and Education for Driving Safety (treds.ucsd.edu) and Co-Director of the UCSD Center for Human and Urban Mobility. Her transportation research work focuses on the prevention of risky driving behaviors, older driver safety, and medical conditions, medications and driving. She was the founding Medical Director of the Exercise and Physical Activity Resource Center at UCSD. She is the Immediate Past Program Director of the UCSD/SDSU General Preventive Medicine Residency. San Diego Family Care, a Federal 330 Community Health Center, is the site of her clinical activities, as Medical Director 1980 to 2001, and Senior Staff Physician since 2001. She is the Executive Director of the Asylum-Seeker Shelter Health Assessment Program. Dr. Hill is engaged in prevention research and teaching with current and past support from the NIH, the California Office of Traffic Safety, Robert Wood Johnson, American Cancer Society, and Health Services Resource Administration, Federal Motor Carriers Service Association, Caltrans, California Department of Cannabis Control and AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Her hobbies include classical piano and ocean sports.
Krista Lanctôt , PhD
Bernick Chair in Geriatric Psychopharmaoclogy and Director, Neuropsychopharmacology, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre
Senior Scientist, Hurvitz Brain Sciences Program, Sunnybrook Research Institute
Professor of Psychiatry & Pharmacology; Vice Chair Basicia and Clinical Sciences, Department of Psychiatry
University of Toronto
Dr. Krista L. Lanctôt has a PhD in Clinical Pharmacology from the University of Toronto, and holds the Bernick Chair in Geriatric Psychopharmacology. She is currently a Senior Scientist in the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry and in the Hurvitz Brain Sciences Program at Sunnybrook Research Institute, Research Co-Director in the Department of Psychiatry at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the Head of Neuropsychopharmacology Research. She is also a Professor of Psychiatry and of Pharmacology/Toxicology, and Vice Chair of Basic and Clinical Sciences in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dr. Lanctôt is an active researcher with more than 400 published papers. Her group’s research has focused on optimizing the treatment of cognition and neuropsychiatric symptoms associated with dementia and in predementia states. Her clinical trials include those evaluating cannabinoids as a treatment for agitation in dementia.
Ellen Lee, MD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Division Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry
UC San Diego
Dr. Lee is an Associate Professor and Division Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine. She is a board-certified geriatric psychiatrist who specializes in treating patients who have dementia with behavioral disturbances and older adults with mood, anxiety and psychotic disorders. Her research interests include aging, sleep disturbances and cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, as well as well-being in older adults.
Pamela Maher, PhD
Research Professor
The Salk Institute
Dr. Maher received her BSc from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec and her PhD from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is currently a Research Professor and head of the Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at The Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA. Her research interests include models and mechanisms of cell death in aging and neurodegenerative diseases with a specific focus on the oxytosis/ferroptosis regulated cell death pathway. In addition, she works on the characterization and development of natural products for the treatment of acute and chronic neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.
Thomas Marcotte, PhD
Professor of Psychiatry
Co-Director, Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research
UC San Diego
Dr. Marcotte is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and Co-Director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at UC San Diego (www.cmcr.ucsd.edu), which has conducted clinical trials of cannabis for almost 20 years, and has an active, ongoing portfolio exploring the effects of cannabinoids (plant-based, synthetic) in various medical/psychiatric conditions. He is the principal investigator (PI) on studies of the effects of acute cannabis use, and cannabis and alcohol use, on driving performance, and has also been the PI on numerous HIV studies evaluating the impact of HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders on real-world functioning, including driving. He serves on a number of impaired-driving task forces, and previously was on the editorial boards of Neuropsychology and the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society. He is currently the PI on a study addressing cannabis for the treatment of pain, and has previously been co-investigator on cannabis studies examining pain, and spasticity in multiple sclerosis.
Arpi Minassian, PhD
Professor of Psychiatry
UC San Diego
Dr. Minassian is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego. She is a licensed psychologist who helps people who are experiencing difficulties with chronic medical conditions or with mental, emotional and behavioral disorders. She works with patients at UC San Diego Health's Burn Center and Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program, as well as with people experiencing chronic pain and those awaiting organ transplantation. Her research focuses on understanding the relationship between biology and behavior in mental illness, medical illness and substance abuse.
Alison Moore, MD, MPH, FACP, AGSF
Professor and Chief of the Divsion of Geriatrics, Gerontology and Palliative Care
Director, The Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging
UC San Diego
Alison A. Moore, MD, MPH, FACP, AGSF, is Professor and Chief of the Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology and Palliative Care, and Director of The Sam and Rose Stein Institute for Research on Aging. She holds the Larry L. Hillblom Chair in Geriatric Medicine. She is a geriatrician who provides primary and consultative care to older adults and a public health researcher whose work focuses principally on older adults and their use of alcohol and cannabis. She also has interests in healthy aging, gerontechnology to support independence, health equity, dementia, and aging with HIV. Dr. Moore has a passion for mentorship and was awarded the UC San Diego Health Sciences Faculty Excellence in Mentoring Award in 2019. She is a Principal Investigator of an NIA-funded Alzheimer's Disease Resource Center for Minority Aging Research, a Medical Student Training in Aging Research (MSTAR) Program, Co-Director of an NIA-funded training program focused on aging women and men, and has been the recipient of a K24 Midcareer Award in Patient-Oriented Research from NIAAA. She is an elected member of the Board of Directors of the American Geriatrics Society, a member of the NIA-funded Clinician-Scientists Transdisciplinary Aging Research (Clin-STAR) Mentoring and Career Development Core, and the NIA-funded Research Centers Collaborative Network (RCCN) Executive Committee.
Michael Petrascheck, PhD
Professor, Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology
The Scripps Research Institute
Dr. Petrascheck is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine and the Department of Neuroscience at The Scripps Research Institute. Dr. Petrascheck does research in Molecular Biology, Genetics and Biotechnology. His laboratory is using life-extending small molecules as probes to investigate the molecular connection between aging and age-related diseases.
Veena Ranganath, MD
Clinical Professional
UCLA
Dr. Ranganath is the Co-Director of the UCLA Masters of Science in Clinical Research Program (MSCR) and Director of the Rheumatology Fellowship Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Training Program. Dr. Ranganath is a native Los Angelean. After graduating from Drew/UCLA Medical School and completing her residency at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System in internal medicine, she returned to UCLA for Rheumatology Fellowship in 2003. She joined the UCLA faculty in 2005 and obtained MSCR at UCLA. Dr. Ranganath has a strong interest in clinical research in rheumatoid arthritis and in musculoskeletal imaging.
Nathaniel Schuster, MD
Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Center for Pain Medicine
UC San Diego
Dr. Schuster is a board-certified neurologist and pain and headache specialist. He sees people with all types of chronic pain, with a special focus on spine pain and headache. His research interests include biomarker research and personalized medicine in pain disorders including new daily persistent headache, chronic migraine, trigeminal neuralgia, multiple sclerosis, spine pain, and lumbar radiculopathy (the condition often called "sciatica"). He has received research awards from the American Medical Association and the American Headache Society.
David Shurtleff, PhD
Deputy Director, National Center on Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), National Institutes of Health
Cannabis and cannabinoid research at NIH
David Shurtleff, PhD, is Deputy Director of the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the leading Federal agency for research on integrative and complementary health practices. Dr. Shurtleff is also the Acting Scientific Director and Acting Chief for both the Clinical Investigations Branch and the Pain and Integrative Neuroscience Branch, Division of Intramural Research. He served as Acting Director of NCCIH from October 2017 to November 2018.
University of Washington, Seattle
For over 20 years, Dr. Stella has studied the molecular mechanism and therapeutic value of cannabinoid-based molecules (including of phyto-cannabinoids produced by the plant, synthetic cannabinoids developed in the laboratory and endocannabinoids produced by cells). These cannabinoid-based molecules could help for the treatment of devastating brain diseases, including brain cancers and epilepsy. The initial work led to the discovery of both the prominent endocannabinoid, 2-arachidonylglycerol (2-AG), in the brain, and its degrading enzyme, ABHD6, that controls 2-AG signaling in brain and peripheral tissues. The more recent work led to the development of small molecule (ST-compounds) that destabilize microtubules and kill cancer cells through a novel mechanism. ST compounds pass the blood brain barrier and are being developed for the treatment glioblastomas and brain metastases.
Dr. Twelves' first degree was in Experimental Medicine and Pharmacology at Sheffield, and after completing medical training at Guy’s Hospital in London he developed an interest in drug development in Glasgow where he led the Phase I trial programme. Moving back to Yorkshire in 2003, he headed the Section of Oncology and Cancer Research (Clinical) until 2019; he also headed the Cancer Research UK/NIHR Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre. Dr. Twelves is currently Director of the NIHR Leeds Cancer Research Facility and works closely with the Institute of Cancer Therapeutics (ICT) at the University of Bradford where he holds an Honorary Chair, and is Clinical Director.
Dr. Wallace is a board-certified anesthesiologist who specializes in multi-modal pain management. As a pain management specialist, he evaluates, diagnoses and treats all forms of pain, though most of his patients are affected by chronic pain. He is part of UC San Diego Health's Center for Pain Medicine, where he served as director for 27 years, which is dedicated to reducing and eliminating suffering, and improving function in individuals with lower-back or other spine-related pain issues, joint and muscular-skeletal pain or pain due to surgery, injury, nerve damage, psychological factors and metabolic problems such as diabetes. As Professor in the Division of Pain Medicine, he is active in clinical trials of investigational drugs and techniques for managing chronic pain.
Dr. Weiss is the Director, Division of Extramural Research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which oversees NIDA’s extramural programs, operations planning, and trans-NIH initiatives, including the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD®) Study and the HEALthy Brain Child Development (HBCD) Initiative. Dr. Weiss also serves as a senior science advisor to the NIDA Director and scientific liaison to the NIH, HHS, and other Federal Agencies. Previously, she served as the Chief of the Science Policy Branch and Acting Director of NIDA's Office of Science Policy and Communications.