Peter H. Reinhart, PhD
Founding Director, Institute for Applied Life Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Peter H. Reinhart, Ph.D., has more than 20 years of R&D management experience in the neuroscience and orphan disease space. He has led drug discovery programs in academia, biotechnology, and large Pharma. As CSO at Proteostasis Therapeutics he implemented and directed drug discovery programs for the disease-modifying treatment of protein misfolding, sorting, trafficking and clearance-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and cystic fibrosis.
As head of neurodegeneration at Wyeth/Pfizer he directed a portfolio of drug development programs in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, neuromuscular diseases and stroke/regeneration, and developed more than a dozen small molecules, antibodies, and vaccines. During his leadership, Wyeth Neuroscience was named a “Top 10 Pipeline Company” for four consecutive years by R&D Directions. As head of neurodegeneration at Cognet Neuroscience, Dr. Reinhart initiated research programs in Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and developed a novel neuronal drug screening platform. Serving as a tenured professor of neuroscience at Duke University Medical Center, Dr. Reinhart investigated the contribution of ion channel dysfunction in neurological and respiratory disorders. He completed postdoctoral training at the University of Tubingen, as a Humboldt fellow, and at Brandeis University, studying ion channel plasticity. Dr. Reinhart received his Ph.D. from the Australian National University, working on intracellular Ca2+ homeostasis and mitochondrial function.
Dr. Reinhart serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Michael J. Fox Foundation and EDENI and as an editor for multiple neuroscience journals.
Dr. Reinhart serves as PI on the first-ever NSF Accelerating Research Translation (ART) award (#2331351) for UMass Amherst.
