UTEP DIDARP: Vulnerability Issues in Drug Abuse (VIDA)

描述（由申请人提供）：该计划的总体目标是在得克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校（UTEP）提出的，题为药物滥用的脆弱性问题（维达）是创造一个合作研究和培训环境，促进对吸毒成瘾和吸毒预防在边境社区的知识。该计划保持对墨西哥血统的个人的重点，同时汇集了一组教师和学生谁是不同的性别，文化，种族和学科在UTEP。该计划旨在增加在UTEP进行药物相关研究的教师和学生人数。埃尔帕索位于美国-墨西哥边境，为研究药物滥用脆弱性与文化因素、社会经济挑战和神经生物学机制之间的关系提供了独特的机会。这些概念构成了拟议项目的研究和培训主题的基础：助长药物滥用脆弱性的社会和生物因素。UTEP维达项目汇集了来自健康、社会/行为和生物科学以及公共政策的研究人员，开展协同活动，将墨西哥裔拉美裔人这一未得到充分研究的人口的吸毒脆弱性的神经科学和社会文化层面结合起来。随着学生人口约80%是西班牙裔，UTEP也是独一无二的准备培训代表性不足的学生在药物滥用研究。拟议计划的长期目标是提高UTEP的机构能力，培训研究生和本科生进行药物相关研究，并在新成立的UTEP教师中促进基础和应用药物相关研究。拟议的计划将有助于创造一个跨学科和协作的氛围，这将导致未来的转化研究。该项目的具体目标是：（1）提高跨学科药物滥用合作研究的机构能力;（2）增加多学科中掌握药物滥用研究技能的UTEP教师人数;（3）招聘和培训研究生，以提高他们的研究技能，使他们能够获得高级学位并在药物滥用学科中追求职业生涯。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overarching goal of the program being proposed at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), entitled Vulnerability Issues in Drug Abuse (VIDA) is to create a collaborative research and training environment that advances knowledge about drug addiction and drug use prevention in a border community. This program maintains a focus on individuals of Mexican descent, while bringing together a group of faculty and students who are diverse with respect to gender, culture, ethnicity, and disciplines at UTEP. The program seeks to increase the number of faculty and students who conduct drug related research at UTEP. El Paso's location on the U.S. - Mexico border provides unique opportunities for investigating the relationship between drug abuse vulnerability and cultural factors, socioeconomic challenges, and neurobiological mechanisms. These concepts form the basis of the research and training theme of the proposed project: social and biological factors that contribute to drug abuse vulnerability. The UTEP VIDA project brings together researchers from the health, social/behavioral and biological sciences and public policy in synergistic activities that integrate the neuroscience and socio-cultural dimensions of drug use vulnerability in Hispanics of Mexican origin, an understudied population. With a student population that is approximately 80% Hispanic, UTEP is also uniquely poised to train underrepresented students in drug abuse research. The long term goal of the proposed program is to increase UTEP's institutional capacity for training graduate and undergraduate students in drug-related research and fostering basic and applied drug related research among new and established UTEP faculty. The proposed program will help create a cross disciplinary and collaborative atmosphere that will lead to future translational research. The Specific Aims of the project are to 1) increase the institutional capacity for collaborative drug abuse research across disciplines; 2) increase the number of UTEP faculty in multiple disciplines who become skilled in conducting drug abuse research; and 3) recruit and train graduate students to improve their research skills, enabling them to attain advanced degrees and pursue careers in drug-abuse disciplines.