Wednesday, April 24, 2024
4/24/2024
PROJECT SUMMARY The purpose of this application is to continue the University of Vermont’s highly successful 30-year T32 training program in the human behavioral pharmacology of drug use disorders. During the past 15 years, we trained 16 predoctoral and 22 postdoctoral fellows. Among those 38 fellows, all but two remain involved in research-related careers. Twenty-five have completed the training phase of their careers. Among those 25, 14 (58%) have primary university faculty/research-institute positions, six (24%) have been principal investigators (PI) on one or more NIH research awards, seven (28%) are employed by government agencies, two (8%) work in industry, and collectively they have more than 500 peer-reviewed publications on addiction. In addition to being a productive training program, the training our fellows receive in human behavioral pharmacology fills a unique niche in addiction research. Our fellows learn to identify basic behavioral and pharmacological processes underpinning addiction and to translate that knowledge into effective clinical interventions and policy. We propose to continue our emphasis on human behavioral pharmacology in the next funding period, continuing our expansion into tobacco regulatory science and the impact of addictive behavior on health outcomes. Since the last T32 renewal, we renewed our U54 Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science (TCORS) and P20 Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) awards in behavior and health, and obtained a new UD9 Center Award in Rural Addiction. These Centers add value to our training program via access to additional seminars, guest lectures, interactions with additional fellows and guests, and new research and career opportunities. Indeed, three of our T32 fellows have taken research scientist positions with FDA’s division on tobacco regulation. We propose to continue supporting four predoctoral and four postdoctoral training slots with this T32 award. The eight members of the proposed training faculty consist of seven PhDs and one MD. These faculty members are PIs on three NIH/HRSA center grants, five R01s, two R33/34s, two R21s, and one private- foundation award creating a rich range of training opportunities in addiction research. All faculty and fellows are located at a single, on-campus site composed of 8000 sq. ft of newly renovated space. Fellows are selected based on scholastic excellence and commitment to a career in addiction research. Predoctoral fellows are enrolled in the Department of Psychological Science PhD programs in experimental or clinical psychology where they complete required coursework including those developed for this training program, and complete master’s and doctoral theses. Postdoctoral fellows primarily focus on conducting and supervising independent research, with additional opportunities to further their education via coursework. Each fellow has a primary mentor from the training faculty. Fellows attend weekly seminars in addiction research and ethics. Additionally, they present their research at two or more national scientific meetings annually. The training period is generally 4-5 years for predoctoral and 2-3 years for postdoctoral fellows. The overarching goal of the proposed training program is to continue developing productive, independent, state-of-the-art addiction researchers.
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