? This is a new application for a Midcareer Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research (K24). The applicant, Dr. Linda Chang, is a clinician-scientist and Chair of the Medical Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). She has been the recipient of two NIH career development awards, first a two-year clinical associate physician (CAP) award through an NCRR-funded General Clinical Research Center (GCRC), followed by a NIDA-funded mentored scientist award for clinicians (K-20) for the past 5 years. She has achieved the intended goals of these NIH career development awards by becoming an independent scientist devoted to patient-oriented research. Specifically, through the mentored K-award, she has developed expertise in several advanced neuroimaging techniques and applied these techniques to study HIV-related brain disorders and drug abuse (cocaine, methamphetamine, and MDMA). Her independence is demonstrated by her receiving three independent research awards that utilize MR techniques to study HIV-associated brain injury and methamphetamine abuse; she is PI on two of these awards (by NINDS and NIDA) and Co-PI on the third award (by NIMH). In addition, she has begun to mentor junior clinician scientists, physicists, computer scientists and chemists, who are pursuing careers in patient-oriented research. She is currently mentoring five clinical scientists (two Assistant Professors and three post-doctoral fellows) and co-mentoring five physicists and computer scientists (three post-doctoral fellows and two pre-doctoral students). In addition, she has active collaborations with many NIDA-funded investigators in drug abuse and/or neuro-HIV research. The current application requests funding (60% salary) for 5-years to ensure that the candidate will have at least 75% protected time to conduct her ongoing research and to continue to mentor the junior clinician scientists. Since Dr. Chang is the Chair of the Medical Department, this award will lead to release of funds from the Department overhead, which will be used to hire an administrative person to minimize her administrative responsibilities. In support of Dr. Chang's career development and research program, BNL has granted her a one-year leave of absence as Chair, in order for her to re-establish her research program at this new location. However, she will need the K-24 award to continue her current level of research and mentoring activities over the next 5 years. In addition to working on the three ongoing R01 funded projects, the candidate plans to obtain additional training in PET, radiotracers and advance fMRI data analyses. This will allow her to develop new approaches to determine how dopaminergic abnormalities might contribute to the functional deficits in drug abuse and/or HIV, using currently available but separate neuroimaging techniques (dopamine studies with PET and BOLD-functional MRI), and taking advantage of the outstanding resources and collaborators at BNL. With the strong publication record, experienced collaborators, and novel approaches, the ongoing projects should be successfully renewed or extended, and lead to new directions in HIV and drug abuse research. ? ? ? ?
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