Elaine Sanders-Bush, PhD

Dr. Sanders-Bush is a native of Bowling Green, Kentucky, who, while she was an undergraduate at Western Kentucky University, heard a visiting professor in pharmacology from Vanderbilt speak and ended up devoting her career to scientific research. After she earned her undergraduate degree from Western Kentucky University, she earned a PhD in pharmacology from Vanderbilt in 1967.

She joined the Vanderbilt faculty in 1969, where she remained until her retirement in 2010, interrupted only by brief sabbaticals at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and Stanford University.

Dr. Sanders-Bush’s research has made major contributions to the understanding of serotonin and its receptors, from pharmacology and signal transduction to in vivo brain function. Her research accomplishments have brought her broad recognition at a national and international level. Among her research awards are a Bristol-Myers Squibb Award for Neuroscience Research, a MERIT Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Heftner Prize for Outstanding Basic Research.

Dr. Sanders-Bush has also been a leader in the development of neuroscience research and graduate education at Vanderbilt. In 1997, she spearheaded the creation of a new PhD degree program in neuroscience and served as director of that program until 2008. In 2002, she was appointed the first director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute.

In recognition of her impact in graduate education at Vanderbilt, the Elaine Sanders-Bush Award for Mentoring Graduate and/or Medical Students in the Research Setting was created in 2006.