Rate My Professor Courtney Miller

Courtney Miller, Ph.D., is Director of Academic Affairs and Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology, University of Florida. She received her Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the University of California, Irvine in 2005, a B.S. in Biopsychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1999, and a Technology Ventures Certification from the Collat School of Business between 2007 and 2009. Miller's research centers on the neurobiology of memory, connecting behavioral, circuit-level, molecular, and cellular mechanisms to pinpoint therapeutic targets for neuropsychiatric disorders with a memory component, including substance use disorders and PTSD. She also specializes in assay development, drug discovery, and therapeutics that target molecular nanomotors, applying these to cancers such as glioblastoma and pancreatic cancer to prevent tumor cell proliferation, invasion, and metastasis.

The Miller Lab integrates two branches: in vivo studies of memory neurobiology and neuropsychiatric disorders, alongside drug discovery and development for cancer therapeutics. In 2020, Miller co-founded Myosin Therapeutics with colleagues Patrick Griffin, Ph.D., and Ted Kamenecka, Ph.D., to translate her discoveries into clinical therapies. Key compounds include MT-110, a first-in-class drug for methamphetamine use disorder funded by a $2.8 million NIH Small Business Innovation Research fast-track grant in 2021, and MT-125, a glioblastoma candidate that inhibits tumor invasion via non-muscle myosin IIA and blocks cell division via non-muscle myosin IIB, increasing radiation sensitivity and achieving 40% survival in mouse models when combined with radiation and an FDA-approved drug. Her influential publications include "Development of clinically viable non-muscle myosin II small molecule inhibitors" (Cell, 2025), "Multiple memory object-drug association task (MODAT) for the study of polydrug associations" (Addiction Neuroscience, 2025), "Discovery of Selective Inhibitors for In Vitro and In Vivo Interrogation of Skeletal Myosin II" (ACS Chemical Biology, 2021), "Social stress‐potentiated methamphetamine seeking" (Addiction Biology, 2018), and "Cortical DNA methylation maintains remote memory" (Nature Neuroscience, 2010). Miller earned BioFlorida’s 2022 Weaver H. Gaines Entrepreneur of the Year award for advancing Florida's life sciences industry through innovative therapies for cancer and psychiatric disorders.