Rate My Professor Robert Messing

Robert Messing, M.D., serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience in the College of Natural Sciences, Professor of Neurology in the Dell Medical School, and Director of the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also holds the M. June and J. Virgil Waggoner Chair in Molecular Biology. He earned a B.A. with honors in History from Stanford University in 1974 and an M.D. from Stanford University in 1979. Messing completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of Virginia from 1979 to 1981, residency and chief residency in neurology at the University of California, San Francisco from 1981 to 1984, and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience at UCSF from 1984 to 1986 with David A. Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D. He joined the UCSF Neurology faculty in 1986, advancing to full Professor, and held key roles at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center as Principal Investigator, Assistant Director, Associate Director, Senior Associate Director, and Vice President for Internal Affairs. From 2008 to 2013, he was the founding Director of the NIAAA-funded Alcohol Center for Translational Genetics at UCSF.

In 2013, Messing was recruited to The University of Texas at Austin as Vice Provost for Biomedical Sciences from 2013 to 2015 to support the launch of Dell Medical School, followed by Associate Dean for Research Development from 2015 to 2017. His research in the Messing Lab examines molecular and circuit neuroadaptations to drugs of abuse that drive addiction and comorbid conditions such as anxiety and pain, employing genetic approaches, behavioral pharmacology, and electrophysiology to identify therapeutic targets including protein kinase C epsilon, protein kinase C delta, protein kinase M zeta, N-type calcium channels, and the type 1 equilibrative nucleoside transporter. Major contributions include demonstrating their roles in ethanol intoxication and self-administration in mice, spurring development of inhibitors for pain, anxiety, and alcohol addiction. He has coauthored over 150 articles, book chapters, and reviews. Messing has received the NIAAA Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award (2002-2012), Endowed Chair in Neurology in Honor of the Gallo Family at UCSF (2004-2013), Harrington Innovator-Scholar Award (2018-2019), Research Society on Alcoholism Distinguished Investigator Award and James H. Tharp Award (2021), Civitatis Award (2024), and election as Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He served as President of the Research Society on Alcoholism (2010-2011), Associate Editor of Annals of Neurology (2005-2013), and Senior Editor for North America (Basic and Preclinical Studies) of Addiction Biology (2015-2021).