Anatol Kreitzer, Ph.D.
Chief Discovery Officer
Anatol is MapLight’s Chief Discovery Officer and leads the Company’s platform development and target discovery efforts.
Anatol brings over 20 years of experience in academic neuroscience research, focused on mechanisms of neuromodulation and the application of optogenetics, electrophysiology, and imaging to understand neural circuit function and dysfunction. Prior to joining MapLight, Anatol was a Professor of Physiology and Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, where he led a laboratory focused on the basal ganglia, a highly-conserved brain region in vertebrates that controls motivation, decision making, and the automation of behavior. His laboratory made important advances in the cellular, synaptic, and circuit mechanisms underlying motor deficits in Parkinson’s disease and dyskinesia.
He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a doctorate in Neurobiology from Harvard University. He completed postdoctoral work at Stanford University, and advanced to Full Professor at UCSF, where he led the Neuroscience Graduate Program from 2016-2019.
