Role of Buprenorphine in Improving Clinical Care in Opioid Addiction and HIV

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This Midcareer Investigator Award in Patient Oriented Research (K24) will provide the candidate with the opportunity to continue her own career development, to continue to mentor beginning clinical investigators, resident physicians, and students in research methods, to disseminate new research findings in addiction medicine, specifically in the treatment of opioid dependence and comorbid opioid dependence and HIV disease, and to continue research in defining drug interactions between buprenorphine and antiretroviral medications as well as to undertake clinical trials to further illuminate how to effectively treat prescription opioid addiction. The overarching goal of this K award will be to enhance the clinical care of opioid-addicted patients through the successful completion of currently funded NIDA studies and to use the clinical research setting to train young investigators in addiction medicine and in the undertaking of well-designed research that will ultimately lead to their success as independent investigators. The Specific Aims of the research proposal include completion of the Pi's funded NIDA RO1 research project to identify drug interactions and their clinical importance between buprenorphine, a newer opioid partial agonist available by prescription from qualified physicians and HIV therapeutics and a clinical trial funded through the NIDA Clinical Trials Network that will examine buprenorphine/naloxone treatment plus medical management or enhanced medical management for treatment of patients addicted to prescription opioids. The mentoring plan will focus on training junior faculty in psychiatry, medicine, anesthesiology, and pediatrics, psychiatry residents, postdoctoral fellows in addiction psychiatry, medical students, and graduate and undergraduate students to conduct patient-oriented research in addiction medicine. The training will focus on clinical research methods including human laboratory-based paradigms and clinical trials, data analysis, manuscript and grant preparation, presentation of research findings, conduct of ethical research and human subjects protections. Mentoring will occur through participation in the Pi's funded research projects and educational activities available within Addiction Psychiatry, the School of Medicine, and VCU. Over the next 5 years the candidate seeks to devote full time effort to research and mentoring with the goal of advancing patient oriented research in opioid dependence and helping to increase the number of new investigators in the field.