Marina R. Picciotto, recently appointed as the Charles B.G. Murphy Professor of Psychiatry, specializes in the areas of molecular neuroscience, behavioral pharmacy, mouse genetics and translational neuroscience.
The goal of her research is to understand the role of single molecules in complex behaviors related to addiction, depression and learning. She and her colleagues use molecular, genetic and pharmacological approaches to link the biochemical, cellular and anatomical levels of investigation to behavior. Of primary interest is the role of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in brain function and development, with a focus on behaviors related to nicotine addiction and smoking. Picciotto is also exploring galanin, a neuropeptide that protects against the development of addiction. She and her team are interested in signaling molecules downstream of nicotine and galanin receptors, which may mediate long-term changes in behavior following nicotinic receptor activation.
Picciotto joined the Yale faculty in 1995 after completing a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France. She earned her B.S. at Stanford University and her Ph.D. at The Rockefeller University, where she worked in the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience under Paul Greengard. Between 1992 and 1994 she was an instructor for the summer neurobiology course at the Marine Biology Laboratories in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
In 2007, Picciotto was honored with the Jacob P. Waletzky Memorial Award for Innovative Research in Drug Addiction and Alcoholism during a National Institute on Drug Abuse's Society for Neuroscience satellite meeting. Her other honors include a Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering, the Human Frontiers Science Foundation 10th Anniversary Award, a NARSAD Young Investigator Award and a Donaghue Foundation Young Investigator Award. She was named a NARSAD Foster Bam Independent Investigator for the period 2004 to 2006.
A senior editor for the Journal of Neuroscience since 2006, Picciotto has been on the editorial boards of several peer-review journals in neuroscience, neuropsychopharmacology and physiology. Between 2003 and 2007 she was a member of the Neurobiology of Motivated Behavior Study Section of the National Institutes of Health.
The Yale scientist is a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Science, the Society for Neuroscience, the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, the Society for Biological Psychiatry, the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society and the International Society for Neurochemistry.
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