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.
Substance use disorders are major complex health problems for which there are very few pharmacotherapeutic agents. A key driver for generating effective therapies and promoting interest in producing them is the interplay between medicinal chemistry and pharmacology. The proposed meeting will bring together medicinal chemists and pharmacologists annually to discuss the latest research in this area and how it applies to the design and testing of future therapies for drug addiction.
