IUB C3A Pilot Project Core

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Pilot Project Core Abstract The IUB Center for Cannabis, Cannabinoids and Addiction (C3A) Pilot Project Core will establish a pilot project program designed to support 2 to 4 new projects/year. The Pilot Project Core PI is Professor Norbert Hájos, who holds a Gill Chair of Neuroscience. Its goal is to support and encourage innovative and exploratory projects from trainees and establish investigators exploring new lines of research related to substance abuse. Pilot projects will be solicited annually from C3A Affiliates and their trainees. We anticipate that some of these pilot project proposals will come from trainees supported by our NIDA-T32, DA024628. Each proposal will be reviewed by 2 members of the External Advisory Board and 2 members of the Internal Advisory Board. Proposals will be ranked by the following priorities: 1. Support of young investigators/investigators new to the addiction field. 2. Support of groups historically underrepresented in drug abuse research. 3. A project that will maximally benefit from access to either the BLM or MSPM cores. 4. Obtain preliminary data for NIDA grant application. 5. Includes a component of high risk/high payout. Low priority will be given to proposals that merely supplement ongoing funded research. All applicants will receive feedback on their proposals and will be offered the opportunity to be mentored by a C3A PI or Affiliate in subsequent applications to the C3A or external agencies. Successful applicants will be assigned a Core staff member to optimize experimental design with the technical capabilities of the relevant core(s) utilized and matched with a IUB C3A Center Affiliate to provide guidance in the substance abuse field. Awardees will present their work at least three times to the monthly C3A research meetings and once to the external advisory board. A summary report will also be prepared when the project is completed. Based on these criteria, we have chosen two projects for the initial submission of this P30. Pilot Project 1 has been proposed by Gabriel Nah, a graduate student working with Dr. Jonathan Crystal, a Provost Professor at IU Bloomington. Mr. Nah’s project uses a rat model to examine the impact of adolescent THC exposure on the lipidomic, anatomical, molecular, and cognitive changes following mild traumatic brain injury and will use both the lipidomics and imaging cores. Pilot Project 2 has been proposed by Center Affiliate, Dr. Shanna Babalonis, as assistant professor at the University of Kentucky studying multi-drug use in human populations. Dr. Babalonis’ project will use the lipidomics core to examine the plasma lipidome and phytocannabinoid levels in opioid users in a controlled setting with and without inhaled cannabis exposure. These two pilot projects meet the goals of the Pilot Project Core in the following ways: Project 1 supports an African American graduate student working on a significant question addressing the impact of prior drug use on the sequelae of traumatic brain injury. Project 2 supports an early-stage investigator examining the interactions between cannabinoids, lipids, and opioids in a clinical population.