Craig W. Lindsley, Ph.D

Craig W. Lindsley, Ph.D. is the Director of the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (WCNDD), University Professor (also Professor of Pharmacology, Chemistry & Biochemistry) and Editor-in-Cheif of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Craig graduated in 1992 from California State University, Chico with a B.S. in Chemistry, received his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara (Lipshutz), in 1996, and pursued postdoctoral studies at Harvard University (Shair). After brief stints at Parke-Davis and Eli Lilly, Craig, in 2001, accepted a position at Merck & Co where he pioneered, in positions of increasing responsibility, the development of allosteric ligands for Akt, mGlu5 and M1, providing critical proof-of-concept compounds that validated the mechanism of allosteric modulation and clinical candidates. In 2006, Craig accepted an Associate Professor position in Pharmacology and Chemistry at Vanderbilt University, and promoted to Full Professor in 2009. In that same year, Craig was awarded the ASPET-Astellas Award for Translational Pharmacology, and in 2012, he was awarded an endowed chair, the William K. Warren, Jr. Chair in Medicine. The following year, Craig was awarded the Portoghese Lectureship from the ACS MEDI division and the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry for impact in the field of medicinal chemistry, and in 2014, received the John J. Abel Award in Pharmacology from ASPET. More recently, Craig was awarded the Pharmacia-ASPET Award in Experimental Therapeutics and named a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher (2015, 2016 and 2017 (Now Clarivate)) as well as a Thomson Reuters World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds (2016). In 2018, Craig was honored as the 22nd Smissman Memorial Lecturer (KU Department of Medicinal Chemistry) and the 2018 Sato Memorial International Award. In 2019, Craig received the Robert M. Scarborough Award for Excellence in Medicinal Chemistry (ACS MEDI division) and the ASPET Scientific Achievement Award in Drug Discovery and Development. Over the years, Craig has demonstrated a proven track record of delivering results; involved in the discovery of over 17 preclinical candidates, with 7 successfully entering clinical trials and several still in various stages of clinical development.

Together with Jeff Conn, Craig has pioneered the concept of GPCR allosteric modulation, developing key proof of concept compounds and clinical candidates. Craig holds over 107 issued US patents and has published over 530 manuscripts and another 225 published patent applications. Of the publications, there are numerous which detail the first-in-class tools and POC for M1 PAMs, mGlu5 PAMs, mGlu4 PAMs, M5 NAMs, M4 antagonists, PLD, multiple ion channels and transporters, as well as the first allosteric Akt kinase inhibitors. As co-founder and Director of the WCNDD, Craig has raised over $390 million in licensing and research support from NIH, Foundations and companies. In 2016, and without an industry partner, Craig oversaw IND-enabling studies of a novel M1 PAM that was awarded an open IND, and the Phase I trial (SAD) was completed at Vanderbilt prior to licensing to Acadia. In 2018, he was a founder of Appello Pharmaceuticals, and in 2021, saw his mGLu4 PAM entered Phase I clinical trials. Beyond this, Craig is the founding Editor-in-Chief of ACS Chemical Neuroscience (2009-2020), interim Editor-in-Chief of ACS Pharmacology & Translational Scinence (2020-2021) and current Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. He has been the recipient of major awards from ACS and ASPET, including induction into the ACS MEDI Hall of Fame, and named a Fellow of the Royal Society for Chemistry, the National Academy of Inventors and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.