This Core Support Center Grant (P30) application requests continued support for an analytical and synthetic chemistry laboratory and administrative core infrastructure. The 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. Disciplines represented by the participating projects and investigators include psychiatry, clinical psychology, general internal medicine and clinical pharmacology, cardiology, pulmonary medicine, pediatrics, and chemistry. Currently, the supported projects involve primarily the problems associated with tobacco addiction, but we are prepared to support studies of other abused drugs as well.
Our aims are: (1) To provide a state-of-the-art, well equipped and staffed, analytical and synthetic chemistry laboratory resource for the participating projects of drug abuse researchers at UCSF and at other institutions. (2) To provide consultation regarding optimal study design and data analysis strategies, particularly regarding pharmacokinetic analysis for participating projects. The overall objective is to provide sophisticated analytical laboratory resources responsive to the needs of individual constituent scientific projects as these projects change and evolve. This facility is a cost-effective shared laboratory resource that enhances research possibilities to further our understanding of human psychoactive drug use, abuse and addiction, its health consequences and its treatment.
Tobacco and other abused drugs cause tens of thousands of premature deaths annually in the US, and are 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 tobacco smoking releases potent toxic substances, some of the projects supported by our Center are studying contamination by secondhand smoke, in order to assess exposure of nonsmokers to these toxic substances, and guide public policy to reduce these exposures.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 187 publications
