New Faculty Search for Functional Proteomic Approaches to Drug Abuse

描述(申请人提供)：了解成瘾的基础需要在神经科学的各个层面上有深入的了解，包括定义最初的药物反应，药物暴露导致的细胞功能的适应性变化，神经回路水平上编码动机变化的学习和记忆可塑性变化，异常选择背后的神经经济学计算，以及导致共病精神疾病的神经病理变化。这些研究的最终目标是确定新的干预目标，以保护个人免受成瘾的影响，防止现有成瘾行为的复发，预测个人的成瘾风险，从而降低成瘾带来的巨大个人、家庭和社会成本。处理成瘾问题的下一代科学家将使用越来越综合的方法，积极结合分子、遗传和行为技术，以了解成瘾者的大脑功能如何与非成瘾者不同。用来定义药物成瘾风险的基因工具和用来定义信号复合体功能变化的蛋白质组学工具将发挥重要作用。华盛顿大学在神经科学、基因组科学和精神病学的许多方面都有研究实力，这些都构成了一个杰出的和协作的研究环境。一些现有的教员在这种丰富的环境下开发了强大的药物滥用研究项目。然而，我们有重要的方案差距，这项拟议的征聘将帮助我们解决这些差距。具体地说，在过去的15年里，该大学在基因组科学和蛋白质组研究方面进行了重大投资，但这些投资尚未纳入我们在成瘾研究方面同样强劲的投资。现在正是弥合这一差距的时候了，招募对使用新兴功能蛋白质组学工具感兴趣的人，以更好地定义区分成瘾者与正常大脑的结构和功能变化。识别这些关键的信号结构以及在成瘾状态下导致它们变化的过程有望为合理的治疗干预提供新的靶点。 公共卫生相关性：与ARRA刺激计划的目标一致，华盛顿大学医学院提议在药物滥用研究领域招聘一名终身教职助理教授。这位新聘用的人将补充NlDA资助的现有研究人员小组，他们在分子药理学、靶向遗传学、信号转导和行为药理学方法方面具有优势。我们正在寻找一种使用新兴的蛋白质组或分子基因组方法来解决成瘾药物作用于大脑中信号复合体结构和功能的问题的个体。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Understanding the basis of addiction requires insights at every level of neuroscience from defining the initial drug responses, the adaptive changes in cellular function resulting from drug exposure, the learning and memory plasticity changes at the neural circuit level encoding changes in motivation, the neuroeconomic calculations underlying aberrant choice, and the neuropathological changes resulting in co-morbid psychiatric disease. The ultimate goal of these studies is to identify new targets of intervention that can protect individuals from addiction, prevent the relapse of existing addiction behaviors, predict an individual's addiction risk, and thus reduce the huge personal, familial and societal costs of addiction. The next generation of scientists approaching the problem of addiction will use increasingly integrative approaches that actively combine molecular, genetic, and behavioral techniques to develop an understanding of how an addicted person's brain functions differently from non-addicted persons. Genetic tools to define drug addiction risk and proteomic tools to define functional changes in signaling complexes will play important roles. The University of Washington has research strength in many aspects of neuroscience, genome sciences, and psychiatry that comprise an outstanding and collaborative research environment. Some of the existing faculty have developed strong programs in drug-abuse research that build on this rich environment. However, we have important programmatic gaps that this proposed recruitment would help us address. Specifically, the university has made major investments during the last 15 years in genome sciences and proteomic research that have not yet been integrated into our equally strong investments in addiction research. The time is right to bridge this gap by recruiting someone interested in using the emerging tools of functional proteomics to better define the structural and functional changes distinguishing an addicted from normal brain. Identification of these key signaling structures and the processes responsible for their changes in the addicted state would hopefully provide new targets for rational therapeutic intervention. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Consistent with the aims of this ARRA Stimulus initiative, the University of Washington, School of Medicine proposes to recruit a tenure-track assistant professor in the area of drug abuse research. The newly hired individual would complement an existing group of NlDA-funded investigators having strengths in molecular pharmacology, targeted genetics, signal transduction and behavioral pharmacological approaches. We are seeking an individual using emerging proteomic or molecular genomic approaches to address questions of addictive drug actions on the structure and function of signaling complexes in brain.