On May 14, 2024, the United States Congress recognized the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA) 50th anniversary with a special event. The event, moderated by NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkov, featured a discussion of the addiction research landscape today and the progress supported by NIDA over the past half-century. U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) and the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) and the Friends of NIDA cosponsored the event, bringing together NIDA officials, researchers, advocates, and policymakers.
Former INVEST Fellowship mentor Sandra Comer was honored as a panelist at the event. Dr. Comer is a professor of neurobiology in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University. Her research focuses on the clinical testing of medications for treating opioid use disorder, methods to maximize naloxone use, and evaluations of the comparative abuse liability of prescribed pain medications.
In 2010, she mentored Perrine Roux of France as a part of the INVEST fellowship program, which provides rigorous postdoctoral research training for an international early-career researcher at a U.S. Institution. Dr. Comer has served as president of the CPDD, the longest-standing scholarly society in the U.S. devoted to research on substance use disorders, and currently is the public policy officer for CPDD. She is a member of the Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Dependence for the World Health Organization and has written over 150 publications on substance use disorders.