Mark J. Thomas

Dr. Mark Thomas, Ph.D. is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor of neuroscience and Director of the University of Minnesota’s Medical Discovery Team on Addiction, a research team of over 200 faculty, staff and students funded by the state legislature to fuel cross-disciplinary collaborative research to discover new, transformative biology-based treatments for Substance Use Disorders. Dr. Thomas received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from UCLA in 1998 and completed postdoctoral training in Psychiatry at Stanford and Psychology at the University of Michigan before joining the faculty at the University of Minnesota in 2003. His research examines how addictive drugs alter the brain and how these brain changes can lead to problematic drug use. His lab is now focusing on ways to disrupt addiction relapse. Dr. Thomas will discuss the team’s recent data and the opportunities that exist for this work to maximize support for those seeking long-term recovery.