The candidate requests five years of support through this Mentored Research Scientist Development Award application in order to gain in-depth experience conducting epidemiological studies of substance use disorders and to facilitate his career transition from basic biomolecular research. Specifically, issues in substance abuse and its risk factors will be studied with particular emphasis on personality traits. The research consists of three separate but related projects: a.) Nine-year follow-up of a study of infant temperament and putatively associated neurotransmitter metabolites. Risk factors for substance abuse will be assessed and are hypothesized to be predictable from infancy data. This study will evaluate the predictive capacity of early life data. Additionally, the overlap between personality and other risk factors in mid-childhood will be evaluated, b.) Follow-up of a cohort of adults, 35-40 years after their participation in a classical study on childhood personality, that will evaluate the predictive validity of personality traits in childhood for substance abuse outcomes in adulthood. This prospective study will quantitate the importance of personality in predicting substance use outcomes over a very long time period. It will also serve as a feasibility study for a larger potential project that would have adequate statistical power for assessment of a broad spectrum of drug abuse behaviors and their differential association with childhood personality, c.) Analysis of data from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism to determine the effect of parental substance abuse on offspring personality and evaluate the hypothesis that personality factors are key components of genetic/familial risk. These analyses will take advantage of existing data from a large study to better understand the role of familial substance abuse as a risk factor. In the short term, execution of original projects will provide the applicant with practical experience in epidemiological investigation focused on substance abuse; analysis of existing data will enable continued development of quantitative skills. Execution of research projects is planned to coincide with formal coursework and mentoring. In the long term, activities outlined in this application will provide the candidate with the necessary knowledge and experience on which to build a career as an independently funded substance abuse researcher and to integrate his biological and epidemiological training.
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