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.
Past Awardees
- 2020 Genetics or Epigenetics Research Awardees
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Drew Kiraly, M.D., Ph.D.
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Drew Kiraly, M.D., Ph.D., received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He next completed his residency in Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine where he was a two-year chief resident and was awarded an Outstanding Resident Award from the National Institutes of Mental Health among many other accolades. Drew performed his postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Eric Nestler. During this time, he was named as a Leon Levy Fellow in Neuroscience. Upon graduation from residency Drew was promoted to Assistant Professor of Psychiatry & Neuroscience as well as an Attending Physician in the Mount Sinai Hospital. Drew is currently the principal investigator of the Laboratory of Translational Psychiatry where the group utilizes translational models of substance use disorder to identify new potential therapeutic targets. The work in the lab focuses on behavioral and epigenetic effects of peripheral metabolites, immune factors, and gut-brain signaling in substance use disorder.
Project: Targeting the Host Metabolome to Reverse Drug-Induced Epigenetic Changes: Appropriate regulation of gene expression is critical for normal adaptive behavioral responses and brain function, and this regulation is persistently disrupted in pathological substance use disorders. Our laboratory has found that prolonged use of drugs of abuse leads to alterations in cellular metabolite levels in the blood and brain. Importantly, many of these metabolites are key regulators of enzymes that can alter gene expression. These studies will identify how changes in metabolites and the enzymes they interact with can be targeted to alter behavioral and neurobiological response to drugs of abuse and have high potential to generate new research strategies for bench to bedside clinical translation.
Megan Matthews, Ph.D.
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Megan Matthews, Ph.D., received her B.A. in Chemistry from Miami University and her Ph.D. from Penn State University under Marty Bollinger and Carsten Krebs. Her Ph.D. work led to an understanding for how iron oxygenases suppress hydroxylation to allow for halogenation and other outcomes important in natural product biosynthesis. Upon graduation, she performed postdoctoral studies at Scripps Research in the chemical biology laboratory of Ben Cravatt as a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow. Matthews investigated the prevalence of undiscovered protein-bound electrophiles and the (dys)functions that the unknown electrophiles impart, uncovering evidence for their involvement in cancer and diseases of the central nervous system. Her program is tracking down these and a host of other leads, which has led to new pharmacological tools for drug discovery for both new and known genetic and epigenetic drug targets.
Project: MAOI-Inspired Activity Probes to Translate Epigenetics and Genetics into Drugs: Tools to identify genetic and epigenetic variation provide powerful insight into the molecular processes that cause addiction and other diseases of the central nervous system (CNS). However, translating genetic- and epigenetic-level insights into therapies that treat substance abuse remains a major challenge. We are exploiting the chemistry of pharmacophores found in psychoactive drugs to study the impact of genetic variants and epigenetic modifications in addiction. We expect that by measuring changes in protein activity in mouse models of chronic drug exposure using electronic nicotine delivery systems, we will identify novel targets for developing therapeutics to treat addiction and other psychiatric disorders.
Stephanie Sillivan, Ph.D.
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Stephanie Sillivan, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Temple University in the Lewis Katz School of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and completed postdoctoral research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and The Scripps Research Institute. During her training, Dr. Sillivan studied epigenetic and transcriptional regulation associated with post traumatic stress disorder symptomology and drug exposure in preclinical animal models. She joined the faculty at Temple in 2018 where she has an appointment in the Center for Substance Abuse Research. Dr. Sillivan’s laboratory investigates the neurobiology of addiction by examining the contribution of noncoding RNA mechanisms to drug-seeking behavior using rodent models of opioid self-administration.
Project: Circular RNA Signaling in Opioid Seeking Phenotypes: During the Avenir award period, Dr. Sillivan will extend her studies to explore the novel role of circular RNAs in opioid-seeking phenotypes. These single-stranded transcriptional splice products can regulate many cellular processes at the epigenetic, transcriptional, and translational level and their biogenesis may impact drug-seeking behavior. Uncovering the contribution of circular RNA signaling to mechanisms that sustain opioid seeking will provide critical insight into the neurobiology of perseverant drug-seeking phenotypes.
Lucas Sjulson, M.D., Ph.D.
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Dr. Sjulson is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. His laboratory combines advanced electrophysiological and optical methods with novel transcriptomic approaches to investigate the roles that distinct neuronal subtypes play in drug addiction and reward-guided decision-making. He is also a practicing psychiatrist specializing in interventional and neurosurgical approaches to treating drug addiction and other forms of severe, persistent mental illness. He is a graduate of the Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan-Kettering Tri-Institutional MD/PhD Program and has completed psychiatry residency at NYU/Bellevue and postdoctoral research training at the NYU Langone Neuroscience Institute.
Project: Uncovering Links between Neuronal Transcriptomic and Functional Profiles in Opioid Addiction: One of the key unsolved problems in opioid addiction is understanding the functional roles played by the numerous transcriptomically-defined neuronal subtypes in the nucleus accumbens. In this project, we take first steps toward bridging this gap using a combination of electrophysiology, optical methods, and in situ transcriptomic profiling to identify subpopulations of accumbens neurons that respond during distinct phases of opioid self-administration. We expect this project will open new lines of exploration in substance use disorders and contribute broadly to understanding the relationship between neuronal gene regulation and functional roles in opioid addiction, which may identify new therapeutic targets.
Luis M. Tuesta, Ph.D.
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Luis M. Tuesta, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He completed his graduate training at The Scripps Research Institute in the laboratory of Dr. Paul Kenny, where he studied the role of the neuropeptide, GLP-1, in driving nicotine satiety (Nature Neuroscience 2017). He then completed his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Yi Zhang at Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School. During this time he worked on developing cell type-specific epigenetic profiling tools to better understand gene expression programs in dopamine neurons (Nature Communications 2019). Drawing from his training, Dr. Tuesta’s lab now studies how drug-induced epigenetic changes can affect behavioral outcomes in addiction.
Project: Microglia and Epigenetic Regulation in Opioid Addiction: Dr. Tuesta’s Avenir project proposes to study how chromatin remodeling regulates microglial activity and neuroinflammation during opioid-taking and craving, ultimately leading to relapse. Currently, there are no FDA-approved therapeutics available for relapse prevention in opioid use disorder. Therefore, the ultimate goal of this project is that by looking beyond the neuron, new therapeutic targets can be uncovered to achieve long-term abstinence and to prevent relapse to opioid-seeking.
- 2019 Genetics or Epigenetics Research Awardees
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Erin S. Calipari, Ph.D.
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Vanderbilt University
Project: Making and breaking opioid memories to prevent relapse
Shuo Chen, Ph.D.
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University of Maryland, Baltimore
Project: A Multivariate Mediation and Deep Learning Framework for Genome-Connectome -Substance Use Research
- 2018 Genetics or Epigenetics Research Awardees
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Mathieu Wimmer, Ph.D.
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Temple University of the Commonwealth
Kathryn D. Meyer, Ph.D.
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Duke University
Project: Epitranscriptomic Regulation of Synaptic Responses to Drugs of Abuse
Andreas Robert Pfenning, Ph.D.
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Carnegie-Mellon University
Project: Interpreting the regulatory mechanisms underlying the predisposition to substance use disorders
Christina Woo, Ph.D.
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Harvard University
Project: Precision pharmacology of the opioids
Jian Feng, Ph.D.
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Florida State University
Project: Three Dimensional Chromosome Architecture in Drug Addiction
- 2017 Genetics or Epigenetics Research Awardees
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Rohan Hugh Craig Palmer, Ph.D.
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Emory University
Michael A. Crickmore, Ph.D.
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Boston Children’s Hospital
Jason Ernst, Ph.D.
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University of California, Los Angeles
Elizabeth A. Heller, Ph.D.
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University of Pennsylvania
Project: Chromatin-mediated alternative splicing in reward pathophysiology
Albert Keung, Ph.D.
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North Carolina State University, Raleigh
Project: The Epigenome in Substance Abuse Disorders: Engineering New Tools to Dissect Function from Form
Olivia Gabrielle Corradin, Ph.D.
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Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Project: Delineating genetic risk to addiction via analysis of 3D chromatin architecture
- 2016 Genetics or Epigenetics Research Awardees
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Ian S. Maze, Ph.D.
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Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Ian Maze, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Departments of Neuroscience and Pharmacological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) in New York City. Dr. Maze received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from ISMMS in 2010, conducted postdoctoral training in the Laboratory of Chromatin Biology and Epigenetics at the Rockefeller University, and joined the ISMMS faculty in 2014. He has garnered international recognition for his work on neuroepigenetic mechanisms of drug abuse and depression, including the discovery that drug- and stress-mediated disruptions of repressive chromatin states in ventral striatum result in increased susceptibilities to both addiction and depression related phenotypes. His lab continues to investigate chromatin regulatory phenomena contributing to drug abuse, with an emphasis on relationships between a novel set of histone modifications recently discovered in the Maze laboratory and aberrant neuronal plasticity contributing to addictive-like behaviors.
Francesca Telese, Ph.D.
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University of California, San Diego School of Medicine
Francesca Telese, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Telese received her Ph.D. at the University of Naples “Federico II,” conducted her postdoctoral research at the Department of Medicine at UCSD, and joined the faculty of the School of Medicine at UCSD in 2016. She has garnered international recognition for her work on the epigenetic signatures linked to learning and memory, including those regulated by the Reelin signaling pathway. Her current program of research focuses on the relationship between epigenetic signatures in specific neuronal subtypes and different brain behaviors, with an emphasis on the molecular effects of cannabis abuse.
- 2015 Genetics or Epigenetics Research Awardees
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Jeremy J. Day, Ph.D.
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University of Alabama at Birmingham
Jeremy Day, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Day received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, conducted postdoctoral training at UAB, and joined the faculty at UAB in 2014. He has garnered recognition for his work in the epigenetic basis of memory formation, including the discovery that the formation of reward-related memories requires epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation. His lab continues to explore the relationship between epigenetic states and neuronal function, with an emphasis on the brain circuits that regulate motivated behavior.
Christie D. Fowler, Ph.D.
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University of California, Irvine
Christie D. Fowler, PhD is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Fowler received her PhD from Florida State University, conducted postdoctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute, and joined the faculty at UC Irvine in 2014. She has garnered international recognition based on her findings that nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the medial habenula-interpeduncular pathway control the aversive properties of nicotine and thereby limit consumption of the drug. Her current research seeks to elucidate the extracellular epigenetic signaling mechanisms mediating nicotine aversion and reinforcement, with an underlying goal of identifying novel targets for therapeutic development.