Marilyn A. Huestis PhD

Professor Dr. Dr. (h.c.) Marilyn A. Huestis brings an extraordinary breadth and depth in clinical and forensic toxicology, anti-doping, diagnostic screening and confirmation drug testing, and cannabinoid agonists and antagonists. Through her research, she focused on improving people’s lives by reducing deaths from drugged driving, finding novel medications to treat drug dependence and using drug testing as a tool for drug dependence treatment. Her research encompassed the mechanisms of action of cannabinoid agonists and antagonists, effects of in utero drug exposure, and the neurobiology and pharmacokinetics of novel psychoactive substances.

In 2016, Marilyn retired as a tenured senior investigator and Chief, Chemistry and Drug Metabolism Section, IRP, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, after 23 years of conducting controlled drug administration studies. Her research program focused on discovering mechanisms of action of cannabinoid agonists and antagonists, effects of in utero drug exposure, alternative matrices drug testing, driving under the influence of drugs, and the neurobiology and pharmacokinetics of novel psychoactive substances. She also was an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine until 2017.