Colleen Niswender is a Professor of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University and the Director of Molecular Pharmacology for the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery (VCNDD). During her graduate training and initial postdoctoral studies, she worked to elucidate the molecular mechanisms regulating the RNA editing of AMPA and serotonin receptors. She then pursued postdoctoral studies focused on the genetic regulation of Protein Kinase A using recombinant mice at the University of Washington. Her work at the VCNDD involves assay development, high throughput screening and characterization of novel G protein-coupled receptor allosteric ligands both in vitro and in vivo. She has been involved in multiple small molecule discovery projects to search for and characterize novel allosteric modulators of various metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) and muscarinic receptors. This work has resulted in the progression of an M₁ muscarinic receptor positive allosteric modulator, discovered at Vanderbilt, through Investigational New Drug Application studies and into clinical development for the treatment of cognitive deficits in Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. During the past five years, Dr. Niswender has established a new research program focused on the therapeutic potential of mGlu and muscarinic receptor allosteric modulators for the treatment of various neurodevelopmental disorders, including Rett syndrome, MECP2 Duplication syndrome, and Neurofibromatosis Type 1.