The goal of the UCSF Treatment Research Center is to provide stable support to an emerging multidisciplinary group of investigators to study innovative interventions and treatment-related variables through well- controlled clinical trials in drug abuse.
The specific aims of the core component are to: 10 provide intellectual, statistical, and administrative support for investigators; 2) encourage collaboration and communication among them, and between investigators and clinicians; and 3) contribute to the research training of postdoctoral fellows and other trainees. Work proposed builds upon that accomplished during the past four-and-a-quarter years under the San Francisco TRU. We developed a new multidisciplinary research group at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SF-VAMC), expanded an existing research group at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), developed minority researchers, and built a comprehensive training program for doctoral level trainees. The proposed core includes experienced investigators who will function in leadership and consultative roles, administrative, clerical and statistical staff, and centralized laboratory. A small pilot studies fund supports training research on a competitive basis. In this application, components are proposed with the theme of conducting outpatient clinical trials in drug abuse treatment. Three are clinical trials. The fourth proposal is a methodologic study with direct relevance to clinical trials. The last two studies propose developmental work leading to clinical trials. The components are: (1) a comparison of 180-day methadone detoxification treatment versus methadone maintenance; (2) studies of the relatively selective serotonin re-uptake blocker, fluoxetine , in primary cocaine abusers; (3) a study of the effects of the opioid blocker naltrexone on cocaine abuse; (4) a methodological study that models the effects of variation in sample parameters on data analysis methods commonly used in drug abuse clinical trials; (5) development, manualization, and pilot testing of an anger management intervention targeted at cocaine abusers with histories of violence. The studies proposed in this center will contribute to an understanding of pharmacologic and behavioral treatments of drug abuse, and will further statistical methods used in drug abuse clinical trials.
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