I graduated from Cornell University in 1979 with a B.S. in Biology with a concentration in Neurobiology. From 1979-1981 I worked in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Robertson in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the University of California, Irvine. I performed my doctoral studies in the laboratory of Dr. David Prince in the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University, and received my Ph. D. in 1986. I was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the labs of Prof. Beat Gahwiler in Zurich, Switzerland, and Dr. Robert Wong, then at Columbia University. In 1990, I returned to the University of Zurich, Switzerland, as an Assistant Professor at the Brain Research Institute. I completed my Habilitation in 1993 and was promoted to Associate Professor. In January, 1998, I joined the Department of Physiology of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Medicine, where I received tenure in 2002 and was Chair from 2011-2022. I am currently Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Director of the Center for Novel Therapeutics.