Dr. Emily Jutkiewicz - 2019

Dr. Emily Jutkiewicz is currently an Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan Medical School. She attended Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts for her undergraduate studies and graduated cum laude with a B.S. in biopsychology. She worked for a couple of years as a research technician at McLean Hospital before starting graduate school in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan in the laboratory of Dr. James H Woods. She received her PhD in 2004 with a thesis entitled “Antidepressant effects of the nonpeptidic delta-opioid receptor agonist SNC80.” She completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Michigan in the mass spectrometry core facility and in the laboratories of Drs. Margaret Gnegy and Jim Woods. In 2009, she became a research investigator in the laboratory of Dr. John Traynor and then became a tenure-track faculty in 2013. Dr. Jutkiewicz’s research has focused on the behavioral effects of opioids and other drugs of abuse, such as nicotine and amphetamine. She identified that delta opioid receptor agonists produce antidepressant-like effects in animal models and determined that these effects were independent of their seizure activity. Her current research aims to elucidate further the role of opioid systems, in particular the delta opioid receptor, in disease states. More specifically, her laboratory investigates the in vivo effects of delta opioid and multifunctional opioid receptor ligands and the cellular mechanisms underlying the in vivo effects of delta opioid agonists. Her lab is also interested in identifying novel treatments for addiction. Thus far, Dr. Jutkiewicz has had a productive career. She has published 58 peerreviewed journal articles and edited a volume of Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology on Delta Opioid Receptor Pharmacology and Therapeutic Applications (to which many INRC members contributed). In addition, she is a co-applicant on two patents and currently serves on the Editorial Boards for the journals Psychopharmacology, and Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. She has also received grant awards from the NIDA, NIMH, and the PhRMA Foundation. Dr. Jutkiewicz has been awarded several honors, including CPDD Early Career Investigator Award, Basic Sciences Teaching Award in Pharmacology, and the Jacoby Lectureship at Ferris State University College of Pharmacy. In addition, her trainees have won a number of awards within the Department of Pharmacology, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET), and at the Behavior, Biology, and Chemistry (BBC) Conference. She has attended INRC meetings consistently since 2009 and currently serves on the INRC Executive Committee.