? OVERALL COMPONENT This Core Support Center Grant (P30) application requests continued support for an analytical chemistry laboratory and administrative shared core infrastructure, and support for a pilot project core. The participating, currently funded, constituent projects continue research programs with human laboratory and treatment clinic studies of the clinical pharmacology of abused drugs, pharmacotherapies and other treatment strategies to treat drug abuse and addictions, and studies of the underlying causes and health consequences of drug addiction with the goal of improving therapies, reducing harm, and guiding public policy. Disciplines represented by the participating projects and investigators include psychiatry, psychology, internal medicine, cardiology, occupational medicine, pulmonary medicine, pediatrics, toxicology, environmental public health, dentistry, and chemistry. Currently, most of the supported projects involve the problems associated with tobacco addiction, but some are studies of cannabis and these are increasing with grant proposals submitted or in preparation. We are prepared to support studies of other abused drugs as well, with validated methods used in past studies, as well as the capability to develop new methods. Projects supported by the Pilot Project Core will likely involve other drugs of abuse, facilitated by encouraging scholars in UCSF's Learning for Early Careers in Addiction & Diversity (LEAD) Program whose studies involve a variety of abused substances, to apply for pilot project funding.
Our aims are: (1) To provide a state-of-the-art, well equipped and staffed, analytical chemistry laboratory resource for the participating projects of drug abuse researchers at UCSF and at other institutions. (2) A Pilot Project Core with the overarching goal of building a pipeline of investigators with the skills and experience to conduct high quality, cutting edge, and/or rapid response research in substance abuse and prevention. (3) To provide administrative support for manuscript preparation, IRB and related regulatory documents, grants management, and other research administrative services of value participating projects. (4) To provide statistical consulting services regarding study design and data analysis strategies, particularly optimal pharmacokinetic analysis to participating projects. The overall objective is to provide sophisticated analytical laboratory resources with stability of support together with adequate administrative support responsive to the needs of individual funded constituent scientific projects as those projects change and evolve. This facility is a cost-effective shared laboratory resource that enhances and extends research possibilities of investigators currently funded by NIH or other federal or nonfederal agencies to further our understanding of human psychoactive drug use, abuse and addiction, its health consequences and its treatment management.
? OVERALL COMPONENT Drug abuse, including tobacco, causes hundreds of thousands of premature deaths annually in the US, and is responsible for much human suffering. The research projects that our P30 Center supports seek to reduce this human toll, by understanding the factors that cause drug addiction, in order to develop more effective treatments and prevention programs. Since smoking tobacco, cannabis, and other drugs produces toxic substances, measuring human exposure to them is necessary to assess health risks, which we do using biomarkers, for people or human subjects using these drugs, and for some studies for people exposed to secondhand or thirdhand smoke, in order to guide public policy and reduce exposure.
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