Rick G. Schnellmann, PhD

Dr. Schnellmann, a leading pharmacologist, researcher and drug discovery entrepreneur, focuses on identifying and developing drugs to treat acute kidney injury, diabetic kidney disease, stroke, spinal cord injury and Parkinson’s disease. His research has been funded continuously since 1987 and includes NIH grant funding totaling more than $30 million. He has been instrumental in founding three MUSC spin-off biotechnology companies focused on drug discovery and development, including a drug for acute kidney injury, molecular compounds that could lead to new treatment for kidney failure and a compound being testing for treatment of retinitis pigmentosa.

He joined the University of Arizona in 2016 from the South Carolina College of Pharmacy at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, where he was eminent scholar, distinguished university professor, and chair of the college’s Department of Drug Discovery and Biomedical Science, when he assisted in the merger of the colleges of pharmacy at the University of South Carolina and MUSC, facilitating the transition to distance education on campuses 100 miles apart.