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Kalpana Merchant, PhD - Scientific Advisory Board
Chief Scientific Leader, Integrative Biology
Eli Lilly and Company
Indianapolis, Indiana

Dr. Merchant received her doctorate in neuropharmacology from the University of Utah in 1989. Following a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Washington, she was appointed Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Washington. She was recruited to Lilly in 2003 from a position of Senior Research Advisor and Fellow at Pharmacia Corp., where she had contributed to CNS drug discovery efforts for 10 years.

Dr. Merchant is an expert in translational approaches for the discovery and development of drugs for neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. The Integrative Biology group under her leadership is accountable for target and biomarker discovery and validation as well as enabling reagent support for all discovery teams, translational medicine and toxicology.

Her own current laboratory focus is on new target discovery and validation approaches for Parkinson’s disease. She is engaged in the wider scientific community via her service on the Scientific Advisory Board for Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, NIH Study Sections, workshops and Advisory Panels as well as membership in several national and international professional societies.