Takato Hiranita, PhD

I earned a B.S. degree in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Molecular Bioformatics) from Kyushu University, and a Ph.D. in the Department of Pharmacology (Pharmaceutical Sciences, Drs. Tsuneyuki Yamamoto and Kazuhide Inoue) from the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kyushu University. I have joined the laboratory of Dr. Jonathan L. Katz at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), as a postdoctoral research fellow. I was a Staff Fellow in the Division of Neurotoxicology, National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where he was the head of a rodent behavioral and neurochemical pharmacology lab. I was the principal investigator for studies from the Center for Tobacco Products and Drug Enforcement Administration. Thereafter, I joined the University of Florida College of Pharmacy as a research assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacodynamics and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Jerry H. Hodge School of Pharmacy, as a research assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (Dr. Lance R. McMahon’s lab). Currently, I am a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology (Dr. Charles P. France’s lab), University of Texas Health San Antonio. My research interest is preclinical abuse potential and efficacy assessments of novel compounds as medications for drug abuse using intravenous drug self-administration procedures.