About the Awards
NIDA’s Avenir Awards provide grants to early-stage investigators who propose highly innovative studies. “Avenir” is the French word for “future”, and these awards represent NIDA’s commitment to supporting researchers who represent the future of addiction science. Awardees receive up to $300,000 per year for five years to support their projects. NIDA has three Avenir award programs, one for HIV/AIDS and another on the Genetics and Epigenetics of substance use and a third for Chemistry and Pharmacology of Substance Use Disorders. (View the NOFO - RFA-DA-24-007)
2024 Chemistry and Pharmacology Research Awardees
James A. Frank, Ph.D.
Oregon Health & Science University
James A. Frank is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Physiology & Biochemistry and the Vollum Institute at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). Dr. Frank received his B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, followed by a brief period working as an industrial chemist in Switzerland. He then obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at Ludwig Maximillian’s University of Munich, Germany, where he pioneered synthesis and biological application of photoswitchable lipids. James went on to pursue his postdoctoral studies in neural engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he engineered fiber-based implants to apply light-activatable drugs in rodent behavioral experiments. At OHSU, the Frank Lab develops light-sensitive chemical probes to manipulate and visualize cell signaling in the nervous system with increased spatiotemporal precision. These technologies are applied to interrogate cannabinoid and opioid receptor pathways in brain reward circuits, with the long-term goal of developing precision therapeutics to treat substance use disorders.
Project: Chemical biology tools for illuminating cannabinoid signaling pathways in opioid use disorder. Potent synthetic opioids like fentanyl have fueled the opioid epidemic in the United States. New therapeutic agents that do not act directly through the opioid receptors are therefore urgently needed. Recent studies suggest that the cannabinoid system is a promising target for opiate addiction treatment; however, we have poor understanding of cannabinoid-opioid interactions due to limitations in our ability to manipulate and visualize these pathways with appropriate spatiotemporal resolution. This project aims to develop novel chemical biology tools to study cannabinoid signaling in the brain’s reward circuits. The goals include the synthesis of light-activatable drugs and fluorescent dyes for canonical and atypical cannabinoid receptors and the use of these probes in mice to identify cannabinoid signaling pathways that regulate opioid consumption, reward and relapse. The findings from the proposed studies will shed light on cannabinoid-opioid interactions in brain reward circuits and will reveal novel pathways that can be developed as targeted therapeutics for opioid use disorder.
Max E. Joffe, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburgh
Max E. Joffe is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh studying neurocircuit adaptations related to drug and alcohol use. Dr. Joffe completed his Ph.D. training and his postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University and opened his independent laboratory in 2021. Dr. Joffe's lab combines optogenetics, transgenics, whole-cell electrophysiology, in vivo biosensor-based imaging, and behavioral neuroscience to investigate molecular and circuit-level mechanisms of addiction. His long-term interests are to understand how prefrontal cortex (PFC) circuit function contributes to drug use and affective disturbances and to develop novel medications based on this knowledge. To this end, Dr. Joffe has a deep interest in investigating inhibitory interneurons, fascinating cells that are widely impacted in psychiatric diseases, arise from genetically distinct progenitors, and display cell type-specific transcriptomes and proteomes. He has received funding to study these cell types through a K99/R00 from NIAAA, a Whitehall Foundation research grant, and a BBRF Young Investigator Award.
Project: Developing GPCR modulators of somatostatin interneurons for the treatment of opioid use disorder. Prefrontal cortex somatostatin-expressing inhibitory neurons (SST-INs) regulate the top-down control of motivated and affective behaviors. Because SST-INs display specialized signaling pathways relative to other cell types, precise efforts to identify molecules selectively expressed by SST-INs have tremendous potential to yield druggable targets with minimized risk of adverse effects. The goal of this project is to identify and validate druggable G protein-coupled receptors expressed by SST-INs that could be targeted in OUD. The lab will take an unbiased transcriptomics approach to identify G protein-coupled receptors expressed in SST-INs whose expression and functional changes following long-term opioid use. Follow-up studies will use electrophysiology, pharmacology, and genetic engineering to define how candidate GPCRs regulate PFC activity and disease-relevant behaviors.
- 2023 Chemistry and Pharmacology Research Awardees
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Antony Abraham, Ph.D.
Research Triangle Institute
Antony Abraham is a Research Pharmacologist in the Center for Drug Discovery at Research Triangle Institute (RTI). He received his Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience from Oregon Health & Science University and completed his postdoctoral training in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. In 2022, he started his lab at RTI, a nonprofit research institute in North Carolina. His lab uses viral, genetic, and fluorescent approaches in rodents to examine neural mechanisms underlying motivated behaviors. His ongoing collaborations aim to develop and validate novel tools for manipulating and monitoring brain function. The goal of Dr. Abraham’s research is to generate effective treatments for substance use and stress disorders.
Project: Mitochondrial Signaling Dynamics in Cocaine Use Disorder. There is significant evidence that mitochondria in the brain are essential, dynamic, and highly specialized to meet neural energy demands. Following repeated cocaine exposure, neuronal mitochondrial morphology is altered, however, it is unknown how these structural changes correspond with alterations in mitochondrial function. Currently, the tools and techniques available to study mitochondrial activity in the brain generally produce snapshots of activity. This project aims to probe how cocaine alters the function of mitochondria in the brain in vivo using pharmacological approaches, genetically encoded fluorescent sensors for calcium and reactive oxygen species, and viral CRISPR strategies for knocking out essential modulators of mitochondrial signaling in adult rodents. Together, these studies will enable rapid development and testing of compounds targeting mitochondria, with the aim of producing a novel treatment to decrease the prevalence of substance use disorders.
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Comfort A. Boateng, Ph.D.
High Point University
Comfort A. Boateng is at the High Point University (HPU) Fred Wilson School of Pharmacy as an Assistant Professor. She received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Florida A & M University and carried out postdoctoral training at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-IRP where she was the recipient of the NIDA Scientific Director’s Fellowship for Diversity in Research and NIH Fellows Award for Research Excellence. Since joining HPU, her honors include the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) travel award, Maharaj Ticku New Investigator Award by Behavior, Biology, and Chemistry: Translational Research in Addiction, NIDA Diversity Scholars Network program and HPU Ruth Ridenhour Scholarly & Professional Achievement Award. Dr. Boateng's lab focuses on design, synthesis, and pharmacological evaluation of selective ligands for the dopaminergic receptor systems, with potential uses as molecular tools and leads toward treatment
Project: Development of High-Affinity and Selective Ligands as a Pharmacological Tool for the Dopamine D4 Receptor (D4R) Subtype Variants. Determining precise physiological roles of D4R signaling as well as understanding the consequences of D4R variants in contributing to disease states has been hampered by the lack of suitable compounds. Dr. Boateng's project will design, synthesize, and evaluate new ligands using computational modeling approaches that exploit underexplored regions within the D4R protein structure to develop D4R variant-selective ligands. The goal of the project is to develop new molecular tools to explore how D4R variants contribute to elevated risks of ADHD and substance use disorders and to identify potential targets for medications development for these conditions.
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Benjamin Brown, Ph.D.
Vanderbilt University
Benjamin P. Brown is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Vanderbilt University. He completed his BSc in Chemistry and Neuroscience at Baldwin Wallace University and his PhD in Chemical and Physical Biology in the laboratory of Jens Meiler at Vanderbilt University. He is the recipient of multiple awards, including a PhRMA Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship in Informatics and a Ruth L. Kirschstein F30 Predoctoral Fellowship. He will receive an MD from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in autumn, 2023. Broadly, his research is focused on the development and application of methods in cheminformatics and computational chemistry for computer-aided drug design (CADD) and biomolecular modeling.
Project: Developing a computational platform for induced-fit and chemogenetic drug design. Small molecules that selectively activate targeted signaling pathways of the μ-opioid receptor (MOR), such as partial agonists and/or chemogenetic probes, can help to disentangle the mechanisms of analgesia versus dangerous side-effects involved in opioid addiction, as well as potentially act as novel pain management drugs without addictive properties. Dr. Brown’s project is to develop algorithms to rapidly and accurately estimate the strength of molecular interactions with highly flexible biomolecules and use those algorithms to identify therapeutic partial agonists of the MOR. His project will further lead to the development of new computational approaches to build DREADDs (designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs) with selectivity for specific G-protein signaling partners.
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Matthew N McCarroll, Ph.D.
University of California, San Francisco
Matthew McCarroll currently serves as an early-stage investigator within the Pharmaceutical Chemistry department at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He earned his Ph.D. from the Oregon Health & Science University and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at both Harvard Medical School and UCSF. Throughout his career, Dr. McCarroll has earned numerous accolades and awards, including the prestigious UCSF Deans Award for Excellence in Mentoring and the Sandler Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research Postdoctoral Independent Research Fellowship. His expertise lies in extensive training with the zebrafish model organism, which he skillfully employs in interdisciplinary studies spanning genetics, molecular neuroscience, advanced microscopy, neuroactive pharmacology, and the effects of psychoactive substances on the brain and behavior.
Project: New Technologies for Accelerating the Discovery and Characterization of Neuroactives that Address Substance Use Disorders. The objective of this project is to discover and characterize novel small molecules affecting addictive behavior using high-throughput screening of molecules in live animals guided by behavioral profiling. Dr. McCarroll’s work exploits a bespoke automated technological platform in which the behaviors of hundreds of larval zebrafish under the influence of neuroactive compounds can be assessed and compared. It enables the high-throughput screening of thousands of compounds for those that phenocopy neuroactive drugs of interest. Specifically, molecules that can be used as therapeutic strategies for substance use disorders by identifying new non addictive alternatives for pain management, attenuators of drug seeking behavior and antidotes for drugs of abuse.
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Christin Sander, Ph.D.
Massachusetts General Hospital
Christin Sander is an Assistant Professor at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center of Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Sander obtained her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received an MEng and MSc from Imperial College and University College London in Biomedical Engineering. She is the recipient of an NIH-NIDA K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award. Dr. Sander’s lab focuses on imaging dopamine and other neuroreceptors during drug challenges using simultaneous positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Her research uses preclinical, translational, and clinical approaches to study the molecular dynamics of neurotransmission relevant to substance use and other brain disorders.
Project: The neuropharmacology of brain activation during stages of drug abuse. Drugs with addiction potential can impact several neurotransmitters in the brain. However, the dynamic interactions between neurotransmitter systems and their adaptations with drug exposure over time are not fully understood. Dr. Sander’s project will develop pharmacological positron emission tomography (PET) simultaneously with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as a platform to study multi-receptor system neuroadaptations and their influence on functional signaling in the living brain. Her project aims to elucidate how dopamine interacts with glutamate and other neurotransmitter systems at critical stages during drug exposure to identify the neurochemical basis of the functional circuitry involved in addiction.