Drug Abuse Treatment Development and Research Mentoring

描述(由申请人提供)：此次K24竞争续签的目标是允许候选人Edward Nunes博士继续几乎全职致力于他的药物滥用治疗研究计划和对有抱负的临床医生和研究人员的指导。努内斯博士的总体目标是开发和测试新的治疗干预措施，这些干预措施有可能显著改善药物使用障碍的结果，使其从疗效提高到有效性，并帮助培训和培养成瘾治疗领域的下一代临床医生和研究人员。他的战略是寻找新的创新，并通过临床试验来开发它们，将拥有相关专业知识的团队聚集在一起，并始终包括一名或多名他正在帮助发展其职业生涯的年轻研究人员。新资助期的研究计划将集中在：1)测试可卡因依赖的药物，重点是行为疗法未能迅速起效的亚群；2)提高注射用纳曲酮治疗可卡因依赖的疗效和区别疗法 这项工作包括：3)测试基于网络的互动行为疗法在社区治疗方案中治疗物质使用障碍的有效性；4)进一步开发和测试一种培训社区临床医生进行激励性访谈的方法。在颁奖过程中，Nunes博士将担任两个R01的PI、NIDA资助的国家药物滥用临床试验网络中一个节点的PI、中心项目的联合研究员兼发起人、与初级和中期同事一起在其他几个R01上担任Co-I，以及两个K23奖项的主要导师。职业发展计划将扩大努内斯博士在统计方法和研究设计领域的知识，并通过与其他研究人员在脑成像作为治疗开发工具和基于技术的治疗等领域的协同合作来扩大知识。Nunes博士的指导计划侧重于临床医生-研究员，特别是博士后的内科医生和临床心理学家 和初级教职员工级别。这一群体对这一领域很重要，但一直是吸引他们的挑战 并保留在研究职业生涯中。这项研究和指导计划具有重要的公共卫生意义。物质使用障碍是一个主要的公共卫生问题，仍然很难治疗。已经开发了有效的新治疗方法，但每种主要药物使用障碍的失败率和复发率仍然很高，需要创新的新治疗方法。在以社区为基础的实践中，即使是有效的治疗方法也往往无法被采用，需要进行有效性研究来弥合这一差距。另一个重大的公共卫生问题是缺乏受过充分培训的对成瘾研究职业感兴趣的医生和调查人员。通过努内斯博士的活动，人们希望通过他的研究和合作，以及他对下一代临床医生和研究人员的培训，药物使用障碍的治疗将得到改善。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of this K24 competing renewal is to allow the Candidate, Dr. Edward Nunes, to continue to devote near full time effort to his program of research on drug abuse treatment and mentorship of aspiring clinician-investigators. Dr. Nunes' overarching goals are to develop and test new treatment interventions that have the potential to significantly improve the outcome of drug use disorders, advancing them across the spectrum from efficacy to effectiveness, and to help train and foster the next generation of clinician-researchers in the field of addictions treatment. His strategy is to seek out new innovations and develop them through clinical trials, putting together teams with the relevant expertise, and always including one or more young investigators whose career he is helping develop. The Research Plan for the new funding period will focus on: 1) Testing medications for cocaine dependence, focusing on the subgroup that fails to rapidly respond to behavioral therapy; 2) Improving the effectiveness and differential therapeutics of injection naltrexone for the treatment of opioid dependence; 3) Testing the effectiveness of an interactive web-based behavioral therapy for the treatment of substance use disorders in community-based treatment programs; and 4) Further developing and testing a method for training community-based clinicians in Motivational Interviewing. During the course of the award, Dr. Nunes will serve as PI on two R01s, PI of a Node in the NIDA-funded National Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network, and Co-Investigator-Sponsor of a Center project, Co-I on several other R01s with junior and mid-career colleagues, and primary Mentor on two K23 awards. The Career Development Plan will expand Dr. Nunes' knowledge in the areas of statistical methods and study design, and through synergistic collaborations with other investigators in areas such as brain imaging as a tool for treatment development, and technology-based treatments. Dr. Nunes' mentoring plan focuses on clinician-investigators, particularly physicians and clinical psychologists at the post-doctoral and junior faculty level. This group is important to the field, but has been a challenge to attract and retain in research careers. This research and mentoring plan has important public health significance. Substance use disorders are a major public health problem, and remain difficult to treat. Effective new treatments have been developed, but rates of failure and relapse with each of the major substance use disorders remains high, and innovative new treatment approaches are needed. Even effective treatments often fail to be adopted in community-based practice, and effectiveness research is needed to bridge this gap. Also of great public health concern is a dearth of adequately trained physician-investigators interested in careers in addictions research. Through Dr. Nunes' activities, it is hoped that the treatment of substance use disorders will improve through his research and collaborations, and his training of the next generation of clinician-investigators.