New Faculty Search for Functional Proteomic Approaches to Drug Abuse

描述（由申请人提供）：理解成瘾的基础需要在神经科学的每个层面上的见解，从定义初始药物反应，药物暴露导致的细胞功能的适应性变化，编码动机变化的神经回路水平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学变化。这些研究的最终目标是确定新的干预目标，可以保护个人免受成瘾，防止现有成瘾行为的复发，预测个人的成瘾风险，从而减少成瘾的巨大个人，家庭和社会成本。下一代研究成瘾问题的科学家将使用越来越多的综合方法，积极地将分子、遗传和行为技术联合收割机结合起来，以了解成瘾者的大脑功能如何不同于非成瘾者。确定药物成瘾风险的遗传工具和确定信号复合物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，构成了一个杰出的合作研究环境。一些现有的教师已经开发了强大的药物滥用研究计划，建立在这个丰富的环境。然而，我们有重要的方案差距，拟议的征聘将有助于我们解决这些差距。具体来说，该大学在过去15年中在基因组科学和蛋白质组学研究方面进行了重大投资，这些研究尚未纳入我们在成瘾研究方面同样强大的投资。现在是时候通过招募有兴趣使用功能蛋白质组学的新兴工具来更好地定义区分成瘾者和正常大脑的结构和功能变化来弥合这一差距了。识别这些关键的信号结构和负责成瘾状态变化的过程，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助理教授。新聘用的个人将补充现有的一组NLDA资助的研究人员在分子药理学，靶向遗传学，信号转导和行为药理学方法的优势。我们正在寻找一个人使用新兴的蛋白质组学或分子基因组学方法来解决成瘾药物对大脑中信号复合物的结构和功能的作用问题。

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.