NIDA has awarded nearly $1.5 million for research through its 2004 Administrative Supplement Program to Support International Collaborative Research on Drug Abuse (NOT-DA-04-004). The International Supplements were awarded to 16 binational research teams that paired scientists from 10 nations with NIDA grantees whose parent grants are funded by three Institute divisions. NIDA and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) co-funded two additional awards through the U.S. – Japan Brain Research Collaborative Program.
Division of Basic Neurosciences and Behavior Research
- Dr. Wenzhe Ho, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Dr. Dun-Jin Zhou, Wuhan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will investigate the impact of opiate withdrawal on RNA levels of hepatitis C and the association between the viral load and substance P levels in plasma and human immune cells collected from Chinese opiate abusers.
- Dr. Kathryn Cunningham, University of Texas, and Dr. Umberto Spampinato, University of Bordeaux, will study the neuropsychopharmacology of MDMA (Ecstasy), concentrating on monoaminergic mechanisms to better understand the role of dopamine in mediating the behavioral effects of MDMA and solidify the importance of the circuitry in which 5-HT2AR and 5-HT2CR are found to control MDMA-induced effects.
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Dr. Donald Kuhn, Wayne State University, and Dr. Maria Isabel Colado Megia, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, will investigate the interactions between the HIV-Tat protein and MDMA on serotonin nerve endings.
Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research
- Dr. David Vlahov, New York Academy of Medicine, and Juan José Miguel-Tobal, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, will assess the psychological consequences of the March 11, 2004, terrorist attack in Madrid, and compare the findings with similar assessments conducted in New York City following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack there.
- Dr. Xiao-Fang Yu, Johns Hopkins, and his Chinese research partners, Dr. Yiming Shao, Chinese Center for Disease Control, Beijing, and Dr. Wei Liu, Guangxi Province, will enroll the first 50 subjects from Guangxi Province in the NIH-supported HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) Trial 58, a Phase III randomized controlled two-arm clinical trial that will assess the efficacy of Suboxone (buprenorphine/naloxone) treatment to prevent HIV transmission among 1460 opioid-dependent injection drug users (IDUs) in China; a second award, to Dr. David Celentano, Johns Hopkins, Dr. Shao, and Dr. Yuanzhi Zhang, Xinjiang Province, will support the same HPTN trial in Xinjiang Province.
- Dr. Alexandre Laudet, National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. (NDRI), and Mr. Gordon Storey, Self-help Addiction Resource Center, Melbourne, will conduct a pilot study to identify and compare recovery-promoting factors and various paths to resolving harmful drug use in Australia and the United States.
- Dr. Frank Wong, Georgetown University School of Nursing & Health Studies, and Dr. Chuanliang Tong, Shanghai Center for Reproductive Health Technical Instruction and Training, will assess drug use, drug abuse, and HIV-related risks among a sample of 200 male migrants in Shanghai and examine socio-cultural forces that influence drug use, drug abuse, and HIV-related risks among this population.
- Dr. Ping Wu, Columbia University, Prof. Yunyun Fang, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, and Dr. Zhiqiang Guan, Chinese National Institute of Hospital Administration, will assess the impact on Chinese youth of the 2003 SARS outbreak and compare their findings with those of similar studies following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York.
- Dr. Stanley Wallack, Brandeis University, and Dr. Thomas D'Aunno, INSEAD, will identify key lessons for the United States based on the eight years of French experience with office-based use of buprenorphine to treat opioid dependence.
- Dr. Alan Neaigus, NDRI, and two Hungarian scientists, Drs. Jozsef Racz and Eszter Ujhelyi, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, will investigate the characteristics of the injecting and sex risk networks of young IDUs in Budapest and New York to better understand the role of those risk networks in increasing or preventing HIV transmission.
- Dr. Wendee Wechsburg, RTI International, with her partners, Dr. Charles Parry and Ms. Bronwyn Myers, Medical Research Council of South Africa, will assess outreach recruitment strategies for women, the adaptability of a woman-based HIV prevention intervention for substance abusing women, and the feasibility of individual vs. group approaches to prevent HIV in the Western Cape.
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Dr. Robert Broadhead, University of Connecticut, and Dr. Valery L. Volkanevsky, Yaroslavl Provincial HIV Prevention Center, will document the extent to which the recruitment power and educational efficacy of a peer-driven intervention may be affected by substituting food vouchers for monetary rewards of equivalent value.
Division of Clinical Neurosciences, Development and Behavioral Treatments
- Dr. Barry Lester, Brown University, and Dr. Trecia Wouldes, University of Auckland, will add Auckland to a multisite, longitudinal study of the effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure on child outcome.
- Dr. Hendree Jones, Johns Hopkins, former NIDA Humphrey Fellow Dr. David Otiashvili, and Dr. Gela Lezhava, Georgian Research Institute on Addictions, will test the efficacy of Motivational Interviewing/Motivational Enhancement Therapy among non-treatment seeking, drug-abusing Georgian men in increasing the men’s motivation for behavioral change, sustaining changes in drug use, or maintaining a positive behavioral change toward their female partners and families.
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Dr. Howard Liddle, University of Miami, and Dr. Neil McKeganey, University of Glasgow, will pilot test the feasibility, acceptability, and impact of a community therapist training system in changing clinician practices and clinical outcomes in Glasgow. The training system will enable youth addiction workers and their supervisors to implement Multidimensional Family Therapy for drug-abusing adolescents and their families.
Co-funded by NIDA and NINDS
- Dr. Victoria Luine, Hunter College of City University of New York, and Dr. Shinji Hayashi, Yokohama City University, Japan, will investigate whether sex steroid hormones acting during the perinatal period contribute to gender differences in cognitive and locomotor responses to psychoactive drugs.
- Dr. William P. Melega, University of California, Los Angeles, will learn the methods of specific assays developed by Dr. Yoshito Kumagai, University of Tsukuba, Japan. The biochemical assays could then be adapted to corresponding assays in brain tissues that could be used to identify products of oxidative stress following chronic use of methamphetamine or the neurotoxin MPTP, which produces dopaminergic deficits whose features mimic aspects of Parkinson’s Disease.