Dr. Phil Skolnick has joined NIDA as director of the Division of Pharmacotherapies and Medical Consequences of Drug Abuse. Dr. Skolnick, who has extensive experience in corporate and academic drug research, will lead a NIDA team that stimulates and conducts all phases of medications development and supports clinical trial infrastructure.
"We are delighted to have Dr. Skolnick join our team of scientists looking for solutions to the management of drug addiction," says NIDA Director Dr. Nora D. Volkow. "His many remarkable years of innovation and leadership in both public and private research arenas will strengthen our complex medications development process and enhance our search for pharmacotherapeutic and immunological treatment agents."
Prior to joining NIDA, Dr. Skolnick was a research professor of psychiatry at New York University Langone Medical Center. He served as chief scientific officer at DOV Pharmaceutical, Inc., from 2001 to 2009 and led the discovery and development of compounds that may ultimately help treat a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders. Dr. Skolnick's appointment marks a return to the National Institutes of Health, which he first joined in 1972 as a staff fellow and in which he later held various leadership positions in neurobiology and neuroscience. Dr. Skolnick left government service in 1997 when he accepted a position in the private sector at Eli Lilly.
"I am delighted to return to the NIH community, which was a wonderful professional home for 25 years," says Dr. Skolnick. "My new position at NIDA will enable me to take what I have learned in the private sector about medications development and apply it to the challenging field of drug abuse and addiction."