Former NIDA scientific director joins VCU

By Marcia Meredith

National Institutes of Health veteran Roy Pickens, Ph.D., has been named associate vice president for research and professor of psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Pickens will continue his studies of inherited vulnerability to addictions in collaboration with scientists at VCU’s Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies and the Institute for Psychiatric and Behavioral Genetics.

He also will focus on helping to increase the amount of research at the university. "My goal is to apply my experience to help faculty get started and find the research resources that are available to them," said Pickens.

During his 14-year tenure at NIH, Pickens held several prominent positions at the organization’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. For five years, he directed the NIDA Intramural Research Program — known at the time as the Addiction Research Center in Baltimore. There, he supervised a group of 350 scientists and staff engaged in the world’s premier drug abuse research. Pickens also served as NIDA’s director of the Clinical Research Division and associate director

for AIDS Research. Among his achievements at NIDA, Pickens helped to develop a five-year plan for controlling AIDS in intravenous drug abusers, their sexual partners and children. This strategy was incorporated into the Public Health Service’s AIDS plan.

Pickens received his Ph.D. in experimental psychology from the University of Mississippi in 1965. In 1966, he joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota as an assistant professor and became professor in both the Psychiatry and Psychology departments in 1973. It also was at this time that he became an internationally known leader in behavioral pharmacology research, authoring many books and scientific reports.

"It’s not every day that VCU recruits a former NIDA scientific director," said Robert Balster, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies and professor of pharmacology and toxicology. "While at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Pickens was on the faculty of the Drug Abuse Research Training Program, which history will show was the most important source for our present scientific leaders in addictions research. We are fortunate to have him here."

Prior to his move to NIH, Pickens developed clinical research and training interests, which led to his research of tobacco dependence and the inherited vulnerability to addictive disorders. Throughout his years in scientific leadership positions, Pickens’ interest shifted to the area of behavioral genetics. In 1992, Pickens was honored with the Presidential Meritorious Rank Award, the second highest award in federal service.