Layton H. Smith. PhD, is assistant professor and director of drug discovery at Sanford Burnham’s Lake Nona campus, located outside Orlando, Florida. He earned his PhD in pharmacology at Vanderbilt University in 2002. There he continued his passion for drug discovery and development, earning a specialized MS in clinical investigation in parallel with a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical pharmacology.

As director of drug discovery, Dr. Smith is responsible for all aspects of the research and operations conducted at the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics in Orlando, including the Florida Translational Research Program. He has published extensively, and his research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and various partners from the pharmaceutical and biotech industry.