Eric Nisenbaum BS, PhD

Dr. Nisenbaum received his B.S. in Psychology from Indiana University and his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh where his research focused on the relationship between changes in neurophysiological, neurochemical and behavioral indices in an animal model of Parkinson’s Disease. He subsequently went to the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center as a postdoctoral research associate and was granted Young Investigator Awards from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD) and the Tourette Syndrome Association to study the roles of intrinsic ion channels and their modulation by neurotrasmitters in regulating the excitability of neostriatal neurons.

He received an NIH FIRST award and continued this research as an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Connecticut. In 1998, Dr. Nisenbaum joined Eli Lilly where his research has focused on the biophysical mechanisms and functional consequences of allosteric regulation of ionotropic and metabotropic glutamate receptors and voltage-gated ion channels. He has led multiple cross-functional discovery efforts for glutamate receptor modulators as novel therapies for chronic pain, migraine, cognitive deficits in schizophrenia and neurodegeneration in Parkinson’s Disease. These efforts have contributed to the advancement of several promising drug candidates to the clinic.