Eric Prossnitz

Eric Prossnitz received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Distinguished Professor of Internal Medicine and Chief of the Division of Molecular Medicine at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. He is also the co-Director of the Cancer Therapeutics Program at the UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center and currently holds or has held leadership positions in the UNM Clinical and Translational Science Center (UNM CTSC), the New Mexico IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (NM-INBRE), and the Mountain West IDeA Clinical and Translational Research – Infrastructure Network (MW CTR-IN). He serves as the Associate Director of the UNM Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) in Autophagy, Inflammation and Metabolism (AIM), as the Academic Lead of the STTR Regional Technology Transfer Accelerator Hub (ASCEND: Accelerating Solutions for Commercialization and Entrepreneurial Development) and on the Board of Directors of UNM Rainforest Innovations.

Dr. Prossnitz has 30 years of experience in studying receptor-mediated signaling and ligand-receptor interactions, having been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1994. He has published over 210 articles, mostly in the area of GPCR function and has made several important contributions to the GPCR field and cancer biology, including the characterization of the 7‑transmembrane G protein-coupled estrogen-binding receptor (GPER/GPR30), along with the discovery of selective activators and inhibitors of this receptor. This work has led to the creation of two startup companies and the first Phase 1 clinical trial of a compound discovered at UNM.