by Bill Snyder
Craig Lindsley, PhD, co-director of the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (VCNDD), has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).
Lindsley is the William K. Warren Jr. Professor of Medicine, University Professor of Pharmacology and Biochemistry in the School of Medicine and University Professor of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Science. He is one of 148 fellows elected this year and the fifth fellow from Vanderbilt elected since 2015.
Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.
Lindsley was recognized for his pioneering use of technology-enabled synthesis, which has had a transformative effect on drug discovery, and for development of drug-like compounds that, by adjusting the activity of receptors in the brain, may lead to new treatments for a wide range of brain disorders.
“Craig is an extraordinarily talented and productive scientist. His ability to discover and develop drug candidates is unmatched in academia,” said Larry Marnett, PhD, dean of Basic Sciences of the School of Medicine and Mary Geddes Stahlman Professor of Cancer Research. “We are very proud of him.”
“This is a tremendous honor,” said Lindsley, VCNDD director of Medicinal Chemistry.
“It reflects the team-oriented, translational science within the VCNDD and the support of the Vanderbilt Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization to allow us to patent and license our discoveries.”
Those elected to the rank of NAI Fellow are named inventors on U.S. patents. Nominated by their peers, they are chosen by the distinguished NAI Fellows Selection Committee for outstanding contributions to innovation, discovery, technology and impact on society.
The 2018 fellows will be recognized in the Jan. 25, 2019, issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education and in the NAI journal, Technology & Innovation. They will be inducted into the academy April 11 during the 8th NAI Annual Meeting in Houston.
More than 1,000 fellows have been elected since 2012. According to the NAI, their licensed technologies and companies have created more than 1.4 million jobs and generated over $190 billion in revenue.
Included among this year’s fellows are more than 25 presidents and senior leaders of research universities and non-profit research institutes, five recipients of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation and the National Medal of Science, and three Nobel laureates.
The other Vanderbilt fellows are James Crowe Jr., MD, director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center, Philippe Fauchet, PhD, dean of the School of Engineering, John Gore, PhD, director of the Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, and Harold (Hal) Moses, MD, director emeritus of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.
This is the latest honor that Lindsley has received for his scientific achievements. In the past two years he has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and received the Pharmacia-ASPET Award in Experimental Therapeutics from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.
Earlier this year he was named a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and elected chair-elect of the AAAS Section of Pharmaceutical Sciences. His one-year term as section chair will begin in February.
