Colleen M. Niswender

Colleen M. Niswender is an American pharmacologist who is Associate Professor of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University and Director of Molecular Pharmacology at the Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery. Her research includes translational in vitro and in vivo pharmacology investigating the effects of novel modulators on cellular signaling pathways. She is also a member and on the Executive Committee with the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology.

Early life and education Niswender earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacy with Honors in Pharmacology from the University of Toledo in 1991. She received her Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Vanderbilt University in 1996, and completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University in 1998, then served as Senior Fellow at the University of Washington until 2003.

Research Niswender researches high throughput screening, assay development, and in vitro pharmacology. Niswender and her laboratory have been involved in novel drug research for Rett Syndrome, which mainly affects girls under 15 years, for over 10 years.

Niswender's laboratory studies metabotropic glutamate receptors and muscarinic acetylcholine receptors as therapeutic targets for neurodevelopmental disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's, and Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome. Niswender's work has identified opportunities for novel drug and other pharmaceutical treatment pathways with these brain receptors. Niswender has an h-index of 64 and over 18,000 citations over her approximately 250 publications.

Niswender's research includes using animal models, such as mice, by using metabotropic glutamate receptor 7 to tranmit nerve signals which in turn improves performance in the mice, and helping develop therapeutic pharmaceutical targets.

Honors and awards 2022 Scientific Achievement Award in Drug Discovery and Development from ASPET

2024 Master Innovator Award from Vanderbilt University

2025 Nicholas Hobbs Discovery Award from the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for her Rett syndrome research

2026 Vanderbilt Chancellor’s Faculty Fellow for fundamental receptor biology, RNA editing, heterodimerization and development of positive allosteric modulators with therapeutic relevance.

Selected publications