Thursday, April 25, 2024
4/25/2024
Addictions are heritable, polygenic and multifactorial disorders that pose substantial burden to persons and communities. A biomedical approach to substance use and addictions, encompassing genetics, neuroscience, neuroimaging, pharmacology, statistics, biology, informatics and psychiatry/psychology, along with access to multi-modal data, provides a strong foundation upon which translational studies aimed at understanding the neurobiological underpinnings of drug use and misuse are built. This competing continuation requests another 5 years (years 31-35) of support for 6 postdoctoral training slots that will provide research training and career development to 3 MDs and 3 PhDs pursuing postdoctoral research with 27 preceptors across 7 departments (Psychiatry, Anesthesiology, Genetics, Neuroscience, Neurology, Psychological & Brain Sciences, Biomedical Engineering). The fellowship will typically encompass a 3-year period for MDs, and a 2-3 year period for PhDs, depending on the scope of the project. Co-led by Drs. Agrawal and Moron-Concepcion (with complementary expertise in human and animal neurobiology of addictions), the Biomedical Research Training in Drug Abuse (BRTD) is the only T32 which offers biomedical addictions training, with an emphasis on neurobiology, at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), which is home to 20 additional postdoctoral institutional training grants. BRTD has a long history of recruiting highly qualified trainees (1-2 first-authored publications at entry) and securing their continued academic success. Prior trainees are now tenured faculty members at WUSTL and elsewhere, science officers for pharmaceutical or biomedical entrepreneurial companies, and are themselves mentoring the next cohort of scientists. The 27 preceptors are NIH-funded investigators with a history of mentorship in addiction-related biomedical research. The trainees devote 70% of their effort towards mentored research. The remaining effort is devoted to didactics (coursework, workshops and seminars) that advance the trainees' breadth of knowledge and provide new skills (e.g., programming, bioinformatics, data mining) that keep apace of accelerating big data and computational approaches. In addition, trainees undertake career development activities in science communication, NIH PI-ship and diversity in neuroscience, as well as required instruction in Responsible Conduct of Research (including content specific to addiction) and Reproducibility in Science. Recognizing that trainees may choose different career trajectories, they may also engage in grant writing and mock NIH review, teaching, public speaking or entrepreneurship training. This renewal maintains our strong emphasis on neurobiology, while adding in novel scientific components (greater emphasis on multi-modal research, e.g., genetics and human neuroimaging, neuro-pharmacology and genetics) as well as a robust career development program that rounds out scientific training. Preceptors with new expertise (including participation of Biomedical Engineering) and new course offerings in data science add fresh perspectives to our objective of training highly competitive addiction researchers.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
