Bryan L. Roth is the Michael Hooker Distinguished Professor of Protein Therapeutics and Translational Proteomics,UNC School of Medicine.^[1] He is recognized for his discoveries and inventions in the general areas of molecular pharmacology, GPCR structure, and function and synthetic neurobiology. He is a member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) and theNational Academy of Medicine (NAM).

Roth earned his B.A. in biology fromCarroll College in 1977 and his M.D. and Ph.D. in biochemistry fromSaint Louis University in 1983. After postdoctoral training at theNational Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), he completed a psychiatry residency and fellowship atStanford University in 1991. The same year, he was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry atCase Western Reserve University. In 2003 he became a Professor of Biochemistry atCase Western Reserve University School of Medicine with secondary appointments in Psychiatry, Oncology, and Neurosciences.^[2] In 2007 he was appointed as the Michael Hooker Distinguished Professor of Protein Therapeutics and Translational Proteomics, UNC School of Medicine.^[3]

Roth has made contributions to the fields ofG protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) pharmacology and neurobiology, particularly related to the function ofserotonin andopioid receptors. His laboratory reported the structure of aserotonin receptor bound to the hallucinogenic drug,LSD.^[4][5] Other major works include identification of new probes and tools to detect GPCRs, obtained through directed evolution in animal cells,^[6] developingreceptors activated solely by a synthetic ligand (DREADDs), achemogenetic platform used to direct selective, dose-dependent activation of a specific G protein subtype in vivo.^[7]Thomas Insel, then Director of NIMH, stated in 2014 that DREADDs were one of the most important breakthrough technologies for the NIHBRAIN Initiative.^[8] and have been used by more than a thousand labs for interrogating neural circuits responsible for simple and complex behaviors in animals.

Roth’s work has been recognized byScience Signaling as one of the ‘Signaling Breakthroughs of ‘2014’^[9] and 2016.^[10] His DREADD technology was highlighted as one of the important advances in the past 10 years inNature Chemical Biology.^[11] Roth’s chemical biology discoveries have been highlighted by NIMH as one of the ‘Top 10 Research Advances of 2011’.^[12][13]Roth is a member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) and theNational Academy of Medicine (NAM).He received theGoodman and Gilman Award in Receptor Pharmacology from theAmerican Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and was a 2018Society for Neuroscience Presidential Special Lecture.

• Living people
• Saint Louis University alumni
• Carroll College (Montana) alumni
• University of North Carolina faculty
• American pharmacologists
• Members of the National Academy of Medicine

• Articles with hCards
• Year of birth missing (living people)