Training in Drug Abuse Related Research

The objective of this training program continues to be the training of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in drug abuse research. This program emphasizes the areas of the cellular and molecular studies of receptors involved in the response to drugs, the development of ligands which interact with these receptors, and the cellular and molecular aspects of neuroAIDS. This program continued to provide support for four predoctoral and two postdoctoral trainees and included a training faculty of 16 drawn from six different academic and research units of the University. These faculty are from the departments of Neurology, Psychology, Anatomy and Neurobiology, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry. Each of trainess continued to work on projects related to the NIDA funded research of their mentors. The training program utilizes an integrated approach to the study of the fundamental principles of basic research in drug abuse. The underlying theme of the program is that drug addiction alters fundamental cell and macromolecular processes resulting in long term changes in neural plasticity. The overall goal of this training program is to teach fundamental principles of how drugs of abuse can affect function at the cellular and macromolecular levels. This year the program introduced a new course entitled "Molecular Neurobiology of Abused Drugs" directed by Dr. Linda Dwoskin and taught by the members of the training grant. There were 15 students enrolled in the course, including all of the NIDA grant trainees, and all performed admirably. Trainees also participated in a neuropharmacology journal club run by Dr. Jim Pauly, one of the training faculty. This journal club included a number of topics related to current advances in drug abuse research. In addition a joint symposium was held in conjunction with the NIDA funded training program in behavioral aspects of drug abuse directed by Dr. Tom Garrity, DA07304. This one day symposium was a great success having Dr. Toni Shippenberg as the keynote speaker and over 50 participants. Talks were presented by trainees from both training programs.