The NIH has funded a five-year, $21 million Integrative Neuroscience Initiative on Alcoholism grant to support a multi-site consortium led by Oregon Health & Science University researchers Kathleen A. Grant and Betsy Ferguson. The grant represents the second competitive renewal for the INIA consortium (founded in 2001), which is made up of 15 lead investigators from 10 institutions in the United States and Europe. OHSU's share of the current funding is $6.3M. Dr. Grant is the head of neuroscience at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC), where Dr. Ferguson is an associate scientist. The Division of Neuroscience at the ONPRC conducts research aimed at identifying and defining fundamental aspects of the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying nervous system function.
The labs of both Dr. Grant and Dr. Ferguson will take a cross-species approach in exploring neural mechanisms that link stress, anxiety and excessive alcohol intake in the newly-funded international study. According to Grant:
"
While there is a great deal of evidence supporting stress-alcohol interactions, less is known about how these interactions alter the brain at the molecular, cellular and systems levels to maintain excessive drinking and alcoholism — and why this addiction is so difficult to treat.
This consortium is tackling the larger picture of brain mechanisms that control alcohol consumption, the response to stress in these brain areas, and the reciprocal relationship between excessive drinking, the physiological state of stress and the subjective state of anxiety.”
[Photo of Dr. Grant courtesy of the OHSU Department of Behavioral Neuroscience]
In 2012 alone, the OHSU ONPRC has been in the news for groundbreaking primate research with these 2 separate and widely-published stories (in professional journals and the popular press):
- World's First Chimeric Monkeys, Primates From Stem Cells Of Multiple Embryos (in the Huffington Post 1/07/2012 and 1/09, on the research of Dr. Shoukhrat Mitalipov)
- Today’s Lab Rats of Obesity: Furry Couch Potatoes (in the New York Times 2/20/2012, on the research of neuroscientist Dr. Kevin Grove)
Thanks to another famous woman scientist, Dr. Ruth L. Kirchstein, who was the first woman to serve as an NIH Director, and for whom the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) is named, 6 Behavioral Neuroscience PhD graduate students and 2 postdoctoral fellows at OHSU are now independently-funded researchers, per their recent NRSA award notification.
Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. invites life sciences researchers, lab managers, and purchasing agents in Portland to attend our 10th Annual Portland BioResearch Product Faire event on the OHSU Marquam Hill Campus tentatively scheduled for September 13, 2012. This event is an excellent opportunity for laboratory equipment suppliers to meet and network with scientists and discuss new technologies and research lab needs. For information on exhibiting, click below:
