Dr. Rodney Guttmann

Dr. Rodney Guttmann is a professor at the University of West Florida's Hal Marcus College of Science and Engineering. He earned a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he researched the in situ proteolysis of tau by calpain. He also earned a bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Florida State University. Throughout his career, Dr. Guttmann has received numerous academic awards, including the UWF OUR Faculty Excellence in Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award, the UWF SGA Distinguished Teacher Award, and the Faculty Scholars Award from the University of West Florida.  He has received the Holsinger Teaching Award and the Flexner Master Educator Award while working at the University of Kentucky.

Guttmann has held various positions at the University of West Florida, including as a Professor since 2011, Director of the Center on Aging from 2011 to 2016, and interim Chair of the Department of Public Health, Clinical and Health Sciences from 2014 to 2016. Prior to joining UWF, he worked as an Associate Professor at the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging. Guttmann has extensive experience as a Principal Investigator in clinical trials, including the Triad Study and the Triad Extension Study for Avanir Pharmaceuticals and the Brexpiprazole Study for Otsuka Pharmaceutical Development and Commercialization, Inc. In addition, he has served as Principal Investigator on multiple grants from the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the American Heart Association, the Administration on Aging, and the Florida Department of Health.

Guttmann has also been recognized for his contributions to the field of pharmacology through several patents, including a patent awarded on June 10, 2008, for a "Membrane-permeable peptide capable of calpain inhibition" and a patent awarded to him and his colleagues in May 2020 for "Monoclonal antibodies that specifically label a proteolyzed pathologic form of the protein phosphatase calcineurin." 

 

Currently, Guttmann is serving as the Principal Investigator for a National Institute on Aging-funded project that aims to identify biomarkers for the early detection of Alzheimer's disease using phage display.