Dr. Ruben Baler received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Biology from the University of Miami in 1993. He carried out his postdoctoral training at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development where he specialized in Molecular Studies of the Biological Clock. He then moved to the National Institute of Mental Health, where he conducted basic research on the regulation of circadian gene expression in vertebrates. In October 2004 he joined the Science Policy Branch in the Office of Science Policy and Communications at the National Institute on Drug Abuse as a Health Scientist. His early publications were focused on the temporal regulation of gene expression in the brain’s clock. Since joining NIDA, he has written and lectured about the Neurobiology of Drug Abuse and Addiction. Dr. Baler has gathered critical insight from diverse disciplines, which he combines to advance NIDA’s scientific mission. These include cellular and molecular biology, genetics, immunology, bioinformatics, neuroscience, and neuroethics.