Radical Solutions to the Opioid Misuse Epidemic
The theme of Innovation Lab Buffalo is Radical Solutions to the Opioid Misuse Epidemic. The number of deaths from opioids in the United States has quadrupled in the past 15 years. Opioid mortality parallels an increase in the quantity of legal prescription opioids dispensed. The abundance of prescription opioids paves the path to nonmedical use.
Curbing opioid misuse is a major public health challenge, one that will require solutions involving diverse disciplines and perspectives. The goal of this project is to facilitate the development of novel transdiciplinary collaborative grant proposals among early-career scholars. The NIH will be committing significant new funds to support grants to study the opioid epidemic in an effort to attract researchers new to this field to apply novel approaches from many disciplines to study this critical problem.
Enhancing collaboration is central to the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program, but it faces many barriers. This may be particularly true for early-career investigators who may be disadvantaged in pursuing and obtaining collaborative funding (e.g., Daniels 2015) without a substantive "nudge."
To provide that nudge, this project will implement Innovation Labs to drive early-career grants designed to foster new transdisciplinary, multi-CTSA teams that will pursue innovative translational science.
Mentors
Mentors are content experts who guide participants through the early stages of proposal development. Scholars need not bring “canned” research ideas to the Lab. Rather, teams and ideas are developed through real-time peer review. Ideas rapidly iterate, in public, with the benefit of constant commentary. Mentors play the dual role of coach and reviewer, reinforcing novel ideas while balancing them with the realities of funding and scientific politics.
Associate Professor, Interim Chair, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
University at Buffalo
Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Scientist Development
Director of Education, Training and Career Development for Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research
Vanderbilt University
Professor, Department of Medicine, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
University at Buffalo
Assistant Professor, Deprtment of Psychology, College of Arts and Sciences
University at Buffalo
Research Professor and Co-director of Institute on Trauma and Trauma-Informed Care, School of Social Work
University at Buffalo
Ekaterina (Katia) Noyes, PhD, MPH
Director, Division of Health Services Policy and Practice
Director, MPH Concentration in Health Services Administration
Research Professor, Department of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Health Professions, University at Buffalo
Chair and professor Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health and Health Professions
University at Buffalo
Derek Gee, Buffalo News
Supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health
Research reported here was supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number UL1TR001412 to the University at Buffalo. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
Director
R. Lorraine Collins, PhD
Associate Dean for Research
Professor, Department of Community Health and Health Behavior
School of Public Health and Health Professions
University at Buffalo