Dr. Lawrence Toll, Ph.D.
Professor Dept. of Biomedical Sciences, Charles E. Schmidt College of, Medicine at FAU Basic Science and Product Development Advisor, Pain Management and Neurodegenerative Disorders
Dr. Lawrence Toll earned his Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry at UCLA in 1978. He stayed on at UCLA as a postdoctoral fellow in Biological Chemistry through 1979 at which time he accepted a second postdoctoral fellowship in Pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, where he worked for the renowned neuroscientist, Dr. Solomon Snyder. In 1981, Dr. Toll joined SRI International in Menlo Park, California, where he stayed until 2011. Dr. Toll’s research took him to France in 1994-1995 and again in 2004-2005 where he worked as a Visiting Scientist, first in the Laboratoire de Pharmacologie et de Toxicologie Fondamentales, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Toulouse, France, and then at the University of Louis Pasteur, Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire in Strasbourg, France. In 2011, Dr. Toll joined Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies as a Full Member and Director of Neuropharmacology and moved to Florida Atlantic University as a Full Professor in 2018.
Dr. Toll’s research focuses on the management of pain and drug addiction through pharmacology and new drug discovery. His basic research on opioid and NOP systems, and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, as well as his identification and characterization of endogenous neuropeptides, have opened new avenues of research and identified novel drug targets. In collaboration with medicinal chemists, Dr. Toll seeks to explore basic mechanisms and the biochemical basis of chronic pain and drug addiction, and to identify novel medications for both disorders. He is internationally recognized as the co-discoverer of the neuropeptide, nociception, the endogenous ligand for the NOP receptor, the fourth member of the opioid receptor family. Dr. Toll’s work has been chronicled in over 130 publications, and 9 patents issued or pending. He has been continually funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse for 30 years. Ultimaxx Health is honored to have him.