Chemistry and Pharmacology of Drugs of Abuse Annual Symposium

 描述（由申请方提供）：物质使用障碍（SUD）是对全球公共卫生的普遍威胁，是全球疾病负担中前25大风险因素之一。SUD作为主要未解决的医学问题的性质在某种程度上反映了我们目前对SUD疾病机制和治疗的认识存在差距。药物滥用造成的持续全球健康负担的一个决定性因素是，能够对抗SUD并帮助实现通常的主要SUD治疗目标（持久戒烟）的安全有效的药物治疗数量有限。研究人员之间强有力的跨学科交流对于提高目前对成瘾神经生物学基础的理解，激发对滥用相关药物研发的兴趣以及产生更好，更有效的抗滥用疗法至关重要。实现这些目标的一个关键方面是药物化学和药理学的整合，为新药的药理学作用及其治疗SUD的治疗潜力提供设计、合成、优化和（临床前）分析信息。SUD相关药物化学需要取得重大进展，以生产抗滥用药物候选物，并扩大我们的药理学知识，以了解SUD治疗如何改变脑（dys）功能和复杂的成瘾周期表型之间的关系，以引起有益的反应。应用于SUD的药物化学的进展也应该使临床前SUD模型的评价具有更高的实用性和翻译可靠性，特别是关于实验系统，这将有助于扩大以实施为导向的研究，重点是与成瘾病因学和病理学相关的脑功能。新的药物化学方法，将产生候选SUD治疗和分子成像工具，也可以提供深入了解SUD病因。我们的目标是组织和进行一年一度的，为期两天的“化学和药物滥用的药理学”研讨会在东北大学在波士顿，马萨诸塞州的校园。拟议的会议旨在作为一次跨学科的展览，展示前一年在药物滥用研究方面最重要的、与研究有关的进展。主题议程将强调药物化学的实验室发现，这些发现为成瘾的药理学和病理学机制以及SUD药物治疗的研究提供了信息。这次重点会议应该获得广泛关注和积极参与，从基础研究人员到医疗保健提供者和公共卫生官员，考虑到波士顿地区作为首屈一指的生物技术中心和领先的生物医学研究中心的全球认可，以及主要的本地研究密集型临床中心的参与（例如，姆克林医院/哈佛医学院）在SUD研究和治疗中的作用。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Substance-use disorders (SUDs) are pervasive threats to global public health and constitute one of the top 25 top risk factors in the worldwide burden of disease. The nature of SUDs as major unsolved medical problems reflects to some degree the gaps in our current knowledge about SUD disease mechanisms and treatment. A decisive contributor to the unremitting global-health burden of drug abuse is the limited number of safe, effective pharmacotherapeutics able to combat SUDs and help attain the usual primary SUD treatment goal, durable abstinence. Strong, interdisciplinary communication among researchers is critical to improving current understanding of the neurobiological basis of addiction, stimulating interest in abuse-related pharmaceutical R&D, and generating better, more effective anti-abuse therapies. A key aspect of achieving these goals is the integration of medicinal chemistry and pharmacology to inform the design, synthesis, optimization, and (pre)clinical profiling of new agents for their pharmacological effects and their therapeutic potential for treating SUDs. Significant advances are required in SUD-related medicinal chemistry to produce anti-abuse drug candidates and expand our pharmacological knowledge as to how SUD therapies alter the relationships between brain (dys)function and the complex addiction-cycle phenotypes to elicit a salutary response. Advances in medicinal chemistry as applied to SUDs should also empower evaluation of preclinical SUD models with improved utility and translational reliability, especially regarding experimental systems that would help expand implementation-oriented research focused on brain function related to addiction etiology and pathology. New medicinal chemistry approaches that would generate both candidate SUD therapies and molecular imaging tools could also provide insight into SUD etiology. We aim to organize and conduct an annual, two-day "Chemistry and Pharmacology of Drugs of Abuse" symposium on campus of Northeastern University in Boston, MA. The proposed meeting is intended to serve as an interdisciplinary exposition of the prior year's most important, research-related advances in drug-abuse research. The topical agendas will emphasize laboratory findings in medicinal chemistry that inform the pharmacology and pathological mechanisms underlying addiction and the search for SUD pharmacotherapies. This focused meeting should garner substantial interest from and active participation by diverse constituencies, from basic researchers to healthcare providers and public-health officials, given worldwide recognition of the Boston area as a premiere biotechnology hub and leading biomedical research center and the involvement of major local, research-intensive clinical centers (e.g., McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School) in SUD research and treatment.