VCU institute awarded $3.2 million contract to evaluate pharmaceutical drugs to help cocaine abusers

By Anne Buckley

RICHMOND, Va. (Dec. 7, 2004) – The National Institute of Drug Abuse has awarded a $3.2 million contract to Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies to test therapeutic drugs that could help cocaine abusers deal with their addiction.

The five-year contract extends work that began in 2000 and significantly expands the scope of the work to make it part of a national initiative, said Robert Balster, Ph.D., director of the VCU institute. Patrick Beardsley, Ph.D., and Keith Shelton, Ph.D., both faculty in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, will continue their work to help evaluate and identify potential cocaine-abuse treatment medications.

“Each year about 1 million Americans try cocaine for the first time, and many of them go on to become addicted,” Balster said. “Unfortunately there are no approved medications for the treatment of cocaine abusers.

“Many existing medications used for the treatment of other drug abuse and psychiatric disorders have been tested in controlled trials, but none has been found effective,” Balster said. “As scientists learn more about the effects of cocaine in the brain, we can now envision possible ways to directly alter the brain systems responsible for cocaine abuse and addiction and then develop science-based approaches.”

A major focus of research in VCU’s Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies and Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology is the biological basis for the actions of drugs of abuse on the brain. Significant contributions have been made to the study of cocaine, opiates, marijuana, alcohol, hallucinogens, tobacco, inhalants and PCP. The institute’s more than 40 faculty members also have made major contributions to the study of youth tobacco use and dependence.

The focus on multi-disciplinary research has enabled VCU to become one of the leading universities in the world in attracting research support for studies of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. In 2003, institute faculty generated more than $18 million in external funding from federal, state and private sources including the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Virginia Tobacco Settlement Foundation.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse is a component of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIDA supports more than 85 percent of the world's research on the health aspects of drug abuse and addiction.