Todd has over 14 years experience leading research efforts in both academic and industrial environments. From 1997 through 2003, Todd held senior leadership positions at Bristol Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute and was an adjunct faculty member at Yale. He spent six years on the faculty of the Department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and performed his postdoctoral research fellowship at the Max Planck Institute in Germany from 1988 to 1991 with Dr. Bert Sakmann, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1992. Todd earned his Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the University of North Carolina in 1988. He has authored over 35 original research articles, published works and numerous awards and grants. Todd's area of research is focused on the neurobiological underpinnings of, and development of new drug therapies to alleviate, pain perception (nociception) using rodent allodynia models.

Selected Papers:

• T.A.Verdoorn, N. Burnashev, H. Monyer, P.H. Seeburg, and B. Sakmann. 1991. Structural determinants of ion flow through recombinant glutamate receptor channels. Science 252:1715-1718.

• T.A. Verdoorn, T.H. Johansen, E.Ø. Nielsen, and J. Drejer. 1994. Selective block of recombinant glur6 receptors by NS-102, a novel non-NMDA receptor antagonist. Eur. J. Pharmcol. 269: 43-49.

• S.Y. Sit, K. Xie, S. Jacutin-Porte, M. Taber, A. G. Gulwadi, C. D. Korpinen, K. Burris, T. F. Molski, E. Ryan, C. Xu, H. Wong, J. Zhu, S. Krishnanathan, Q. Gao, T. A. Verdoorn, and G. Johnson. 2002. (+) Dinapsoline – An efficient synthesis and pharmacological profile of a novel dopamine agonist. J. Med. Chem. 45:3660-3668.

• J.S.S. Sikes and T.A. Verdoorn. 2004. Lysine 445 is a molecular indicator of subunit specific AMPA receptor binding sites. Neurosci Res. Comm. 32;143-150.