Dr. Russell Amato received his PhD in Pharmacology at Louisiana State University School of Medicine and has over a decade of experience in developing novel therapeutics for neuropsychiatric diseases including drug abuse, depression, anxiety, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). His PhD work focused on the evaluation of neuroactive steroids in preclinical models of alcohol addiction, as well as assessing these compounds for their potential utility in cognitive disorders.

He completed his postdoctoral fellowship within the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery, where he evaluated metabotropic glutamate receptor negative allosteric modulators for the treatment of cocaine addiction, in addition to evaluating these compounds for use in depressive/anxiety disorders. Before coming to Genomind, Dr. Amato also worked on the development of antisense oligonucleotides as a novel therapy for genetic polymorphisms in a preclinical model of Usher Syndrome, providing him with a strong background in both genetics and psychiatric disease.

Dr. Amato’s work has been published on numerous occasions, one being this review in the Journal of Psychosocial Nursing.