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Marilyn A. Huestis
Marilyn A. Huestis, Ph.D., is a tenured senior investigator and the Chief, Chemistry and Drug Metabolism Section, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Research Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health. Dr. Huestis is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Maryland Baltimore. She thoroughly enjoys mentoring doctoral students in Toxicology, has to date overseen the research of five distinguished new toxicologists, and currently has five students pursuing their dissertation research.
She directs a large research program that seeks to discover mechanisms of action of cannabinoid agonists and antagonists, effects of in utero drug exposure, and the neurobiology and pharmacokinetics of MDMA (Ecstasy). She is interested in the disposition of drugs and metabolites in a wide variety of biological fluids and tissues following controlled drug administration; data that provide a scientific database for interpreting drug concentrations in many alternative matrices.
Dr. Huestis is the principal investigator of several phase I clinical studies evaluating the effects of the CB-1 cannabinoid receptor antagonist rimonabant in cannabis users. She directed the first clinical Cooperative Research And Development Agreement (CRADA) for the Intramural Research Program that has served as a model for future research endeavors. Dr. Huestis also is investigating the effectiveness of buprenorphine and methadone for the treatment of opioid-dependent pregnant women and is the Intramural Research Program’s responsible investigator in a multi-center study of in utero methamphetamine exposure.
Dr Huestis has published 197 peer-reviewed manuscripts, book chapters, monographs and over 279 abstracts presented at national and international meetings. She received a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Mount Holyoke College (cum laude), a master's degree in clinical chemistry from the University of New Mexico (with honors), and a doctoral degree in toxicology from the University of Maryland in Baltimore (with honors). Dr. Huestis recently was selected to receive a Doctor Honoris causa from the School of Medicine, University of Helsinki in Finland to be presented in June 2010. She received the American Association for Clinical Chemistry Outstanding Contributions in a Selected Area of Research Award in 2008, the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology (IATDMCT) Irving Sunshine Award 2007 for excellence in Clinical Toxicology, the American Academy of Forensic Sciences’ Rolla N. Harger Award for lifetime contributions in forensic toxicology in 2005, and the Irving Sunshine Award for Outstanding Research in Forensic Toxicology in 1992 for her research on cannabis. She was director of one of the first forensic urine drug testing laboratories among 150 applicants to be certified by NIDA.
With this background and experience she serves on the World Anti-doping Agency’s Prohibited List Committee, was a member of the advisory board for U.S. Anti-Doping Agency’s Research Advisory Panel and provides consultation for the Office of National Drug Control Policy and Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Huestis is past president of the Society of Forensic Toxicologists, past Chair of the Toxicology Section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, and the first woman president of the International Association of Forensic Toxicologists.
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