Brain Institute's Leader Earns Prestigious Honors
International awards, global honors and top state inductions – that’s just to name a few of the recognitions this year for Randy D. Blakely, Ph.D, executive director of Florida Atlantic University’s Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute (SNBI).
Blakely was recently named a Fellow of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), an honor that recognizes leaders in the field for their research, education, mentorship and leadership.
“I am deeply grateful and profoundly honored to receive this prestigious recognition from ASPET,” Blakely said. “This acknowledgment not only reflects the efforts of my incredible mentors, collaborators and trainees, but also reinforces how advancing our fundamental understanding of brain molecules and circuits can yield clues to disease and treatments.”
Blakely’s pioneering work has advanced the understanding of neurotransmitter transporters – the proteins responsible for regulating communication between neurons – and how genetic alterations and behavior (such as substance abuse) can disrupt transporter function and lead to neurobehavioral disorders.
In addition to being the director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at Florida Atlantic and honored in 2022 with the Scientist Educator Award by the Society for Neuroscience, the world’s largest scientific body supporting brain research, Blakely was also one of three FAU faculty members recently inducted into the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida.
With his extensive published research, which includes publications in high-impact journals such as Nature, Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the New England Journal of Medicine, Blakely is one of 10 SNBI affiliated faculty recently recognized among the world’s top 2% of scientists.
“Those recognized here are really just the tip of a spear with significant momentum behind it that will see many more reaching recognition as Florida Atlantic ascends,” Blakely said.