Rate My Professor Javier Gonzalez-Maeso

Javier Gonzalez-Maeso, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine. A leader in molecular biology and neuroscience, his research specializes in G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and G proteins, molecular pharmacology, neuropsychopharmacology, psychedelics, epigenetics, gut-brain axis, molecular psychiatry, schizophrenia, suicide, and alcoholism. He utilizes heterologous expression systems, mouse models of psychiatric disorders, and postmortem human brain samples. Gonzalez-Maeso obtained B.S. degrees in Biology (1995) and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (1997) from the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain, and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology (2001, summa cum laude) under Dr. Javier Meana. His postdoctoral work (2001-2005) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine with Dr. Stuart Sealfon elucidated molecular mechanisms of psychedelic effects in mice.

His career trajectory includes Instructor and Assistant Professor roles at Mount Sinai School of Medicine (2006-2015), followed by recruitment to VCU in 2015 as Associate Professor in Physiology and Biophysics, promoted to Professor (2020-2025), and currently Professor in Pharmacology and Toxicology (since 2025). He is an affiliate Professor in the Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics and Center for Biomarker Research and Precision Medicine. Notable awards encompass NARSAD Young Investigator Awards (2008, 2010), Mortimer D. Sackler Foundation Award (2012), VCU Presidential Research Quest Fund (2016), VCU Outstanding Teaching Award (2018), and VCU Inaugural National/International Recognition Award (2023). In 2023, he presented a TEDx talk, "From Hallucinations to Healing: Neurobiology of Psychedelics." Gonzalez-Maeso serves on NIH-NIMH PMDA Study section (2019-2025) and SfN committees. Select publications include "Pharmacological fingerprint of antipsychotic drugs at the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor" (Molecular Psychiatry, 2024), "Antipsychotic-induced epigenomic reorganization in frontal cortex samples of individuals with schizophrenia" (eLife, 2024), "Prolonged epigenomic and synaptic plasticity alterations following single exposure to a psychedelic in mice" (Cell Reports, 2021), and "Sex-specific role for serotonin 5-HT2A receptor in modulation of opioid-induced antinociception in mice" (Neuropharmacology, 2022).