James E. Barrett

Dr. James E. Barrett is Professor and Chair of Pharmacology and Physiology and Director of the Drug Discovery and Development Program at Drexel University College of Medicine.  He received his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University followed by postdoctoral training in neuropsychopharmacology at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology.  Following his postdoctoral training he served on the faculty at the University of Maryland and was promoted to Professor of Biopsychology.  Before moving to the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Barrett was a Professor of Psychiatry, Medical Psychology and Pharmacology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, MD.  His research programs combined behavioral, pharmacological and neurochemical techniques to focus on anxiety, depression and substance abuse.  He received the Solvay-Duphar Award for Research on Affective Disorders.  Dr. Barrett joined Wyeth as Vice President of Neuroscience Discovery Research in 1995 following the merger with Lederle Laboratories where he had been Director of Central Nervous System Research for three years.  Prior to his current position at Drexel University College of Medicine, he was Senior Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer, and President, Research at Adolor Corporation, a company focused on pain pharmaceuticals.  He moved to Adolor after serving as President of Research and Development at Memory Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of drugs for the treatment of debilitating central nervous system (CNS) disorders.  He has published more than 275 scientific articles, books and abstracts in the areas of neuropharmacology, neurobiology, behavioral pharmacology, and neuroscience and serves on several editorial boards. He has served on numerous NIH review committees, most recently the NIMH, NIAAA and NIDA National Cooperative Drug Discovery Group Program and the Clinical Trials and Translational Medicine (CTSA) Committee.  He is Past President of the Behavioral Pharmacology Society and, recently, President of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET).  He is currently Chair of the Board of Publication Trustees for ASPET and serves on the Board of Directors for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), is a member of the Science Policy Committee, the Public Affairs Committee and is Chair of the “Breakthrough Series in Science.” He also serves on the Advisory Committee to the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress Research, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and has chaired several Special Emphasis Panels for the NIH.