Christopher Conrad, Ph.D.

Dr. Christopher Conrad is a Scientific Program Manager in the Division of Translational Research (DTR) working in the Preclinical Screening Platform for Pain (PSPP). As part of the Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative (HEAL), the PSPP program facilitates the identification of potential non-opioid, non-addictive treatments for acute and chronic pain conditions. Dr. Conrad brings to the program extensive experience in therapeutics development, including neurological disorders.

Before NINDS, Dr. Conrad was a program officer for Translational Initiatives in Drug Discovery and Development-New Drugs and Biologics for Substance Use Disorders at the Office of Translational Initiatives and Program Innovations (OTIPI) at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Previously, he served in several small biotechnology (e.g., Proteostasis Therapeutics, Biomedsyn Corporation, LAM Therapeutics/AI Therapeutics, Phenovista Biosciences) and large pharmaceutical companies (e.g., Celgene Corporation) where he drove projects from early drug discovery of targets to New Drug Application studies leading to a successful FDA approval of Zeposia for relapsing forms of Multiple Sclerosis. Dr. Conrad holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Molecular Pathology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. He received postdoctoral training in the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, which led to a tenure track faculty position at Columbia University - College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. During his academic and industrial research career, he has amassed publications and patents for the therapeutic intervention of neurological disorders, neurodegenerative diseases, nerve agent countermeasures, cancers, viral infections, immunological disorders, and rare diseases.