Tachykinins

Peter Holzer obtained his Ph.D. in Physiology and Biochemistry from the University of Graz, Austria, in 1978. His academic career included a postdoctoral fellowship at the A.R.C. Institute of Animal Physiology and the M.R.C. Neurochemical Pharmacology Unit at the University of Cambridge, U.K., in 1980. After becoming Reader in Neuropharmacology at the University of Graz in 1985, he was a visiting scientist with the CURE Digestive Diseases Research Center at the University of California Medical School in Los Angeles, U.S.A., in 1989. In 1993 he was promoted to Professor of Neuropharmacology in the Department of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Graz, Austria. In 2000 Dr. Holzer declined to take the chair of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Department of Pharmacy of the University of Innsbruck, Austria.

Dr. Holzer has been holding grants from the Austrian Science Foundation, the Austrian National Bank, the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of the Republic of Austria and the Zukunftsfonds of the Province of Styria, Austria. His major research interests are in the fields of neuropharmacology, gastrointestinal pharmacology and experimental neurogastroenterology. Particular topics of research include the function of enteric neurons and primary afferent neurons in health and disease, the implication of neuropeptides and neuropeptide receptors in the regulation of gastrointestinal motility, inflammation and ulceration and the development and pharmacological characterization of experimental models with which to study dyspepsia and visceral pain. Dr. Holzer´s publications include more than 170 papers in peer-reviewed international journals.

Dr. Holzer has been Chairman of the European Neuropeptide Club 1994 – 1996, Secretary of the IUPHAR Section of Gastrointestinal Pharmacology 1994 – 1998, and President of the Austrian Neuroscience Association 2002 – 2003. Dr. Holzer has been serving onthe editorial boards of several premier journals in his field, including Neuroscience, British Journal of Pharmacology, Neurogastroenterology & Motility, Naunyn-Schmiedeberg’s Archives of Pharmacology, Regulatory Peptides and Digestion.