Five INVEST/Clinical Trials Network (CTN) Fellows reported on their mentored research projects, and representatives of three other international initiatives reported on their activities during an international report session at the April 17, 2012, CTN Steering Committee meeting in Atlanta. The international initiatives discussed included the Clinical Intervention Network in Addiction being created by the Institute of Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addiction at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; development of a CTN-type organization in Mexico; and research into heroin substitution treatment for opioid dependence in Switzerland, part of a fellowship project conducted by Gabriel Thorens, M.D., University Hospital of Geneva. Dr. Thorens’s mentor is John Rotrosen, M.D., New York University. The INVEST/CTN Fellows included:
- Cecile Denis, Ph.D., France, who participated in field trials of diagnostic severity measures proposed for the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and researched assessment tools, such as the Addiction Severity Index, and treatment outcome measures at the University of Pennsylvania. Her mentors are John Cacciola, Ph.D., and Charles O’Brien, M.D., Ph.D.
- Sergii Dvoriak, M.D., Ph.D., Ukraine, who—with his mentor, George Woody, M.D., University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues in Russia—is comparing the costs and outcomes of the different treatment models for opioid dependence that have been developed in Russia and Ukraine despite the similarities in the two countries’ HIV epidemics, cultures, and economies. The team has received a 5-year grant from NIDA.
- Maria de L.Garcia-Anaya, M.D., Ph.D., Mexico, whose fellowship is part of the initiative to develop a Mexican network similar to the CTN. Her mentors are Edward V. Nunes, M.D., Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, and Jose Szapocznik, Ph.D., University of Miami.
- Wang Xuyi, M.D., China, who is testing the effects of contingency management techniques on psychosocial function and treatment for methamphetamine dependence with his mentor, Walter L. Ling, M.D., University of California, Los Angeles.
- Effatalsadat M. Khoei, Ph.D., Iran, who is working with Kathleen Brady, M.D., Ph.D., at the Medical University of South Carolina to develop gender-sensitive prevention programs for female drug users and sex workers. She described the drug situation in Iran, treatment options for various drugs of abuse that are available in the country, and characteristics of Iranian women who abuse drugs.