Biomedical Research Training in Drug Abuse

Addictions are heritable, polygenic and multifactorial disorders that pose substantial burden to persons and
communities. A biomedical approach to substance use and addictions, encompassing genetics, neuroscience,
neuroimaging, pharmacology, statistics, biology, informatics and psychiatry/psychology, along with access to
multi-modal data, provides a strong foundation upon which translational studies aimed at understanding the
neurobiological underpinnings of drug use and misuse are built. This competing continuation requests another
5 years (years 31-35) of support for 6 postdoctoral training slots that will provide research training and career
development to 3 MDs and 3 PhDs pursuing postdoctoral research with 27 preceptors across 7 departments
(Psychiatry, Anesthesiology, Genetics, Neuroscience, Neurology, Psychological & Brain Sciences, Biomedical
Engineering). The fellowship will typically encompass a 3-year period for MDs, and a 2-3 year period for PhDs,
depending on the scope of the project. Co-led by Drs. Agrawal and Moron-Concepcion (with complementary
expertise in human and animal neurobiology of addictions), the Biomedical Research Training in Drug Abuse
(BRTD) is the only T32 which offers biomedical addictions training, with an emphasis on neurobiology, at
Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL), which is home to 20 additional postdoctoral institutional training
grants. BRTD has a long history of recruiting highly qualified trainees (1-2 first-authored publications at entry)
and securing their continued academic success. Prior trainees are now tenured faculty members at WUSTL
and elsewhere, science officers for pharmaceutical or biomedical entrepreneurial companies, and are
themselves mentoring the next cohort of scientists. The 27 preceptors are NIH-funded investigators with a
history of mentorship in addiction-related biomedical research. The trainees devote 70% of their effort towards
mentored research. The remaining effort is devoted to didactics (coursework, workshops and seminars) that
advance the trainees' breadth of knowledge and provide new skills (e.g., programming, bioinformatics, data
mining) that keep apace of accelerating big data and computational approaches. In addition, trainees
undertake career development activities in science communication, NIH PI-ship and diversity in neuroscience,
as well as required instruction in Responsible Conduct of Research (including content specific to addiction) and
Reproducibility in Science. Recognizing that trainees may choose different career trajectories, they may also
engage in grant writing and mock NIH review, teaching, public speaking or entrepreneurship training. This
renewal maintains our strong emphasis on neurobiology, while adding in novel scientific components (greater
emphasis on multi-modal research, e.g., genetics and human neuroimaging, neuro-pharmacology and
genetics) as well as a robust career development program that rounds out scientific training. Preceptors with
new expertise (including participation of Biomedical Engineering) and new course offerings in data science add
fresh perspectives to our objective of training highly competitive addiction researchers.

Grant Number: 5T32DA007261-34
NIH Institute/Center: NIH
Principal Investigator: ARPANA AGRAWAL