In an effort to dramatically improve treatment throughout the country, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has awarded $55 million in grants over five years to establish a clinical trials network that will more rapidly move promising science-based drug addiction treatments into community settings.
NIDA supported scientists have made tremendous progress in developing new and improved pharmacological and behavioral treatments for drug addiction; however, most of these new treatments are not widely used in practice.
"The clinical trials network will help us change the face of drug abuse treatment by enabling us to take what we learn in the lab and rapidly put it into practice across the country," said Dr. Alan I. Leshner, NIDA director.
The five centers awarded grants today are collectively the foundation for the National Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network (CTN), which will provide a research infrastructure to test drug addiction treatments in real-life settings with diverse patient populations. The CTN will foster partnerships among NIDA, treatment researchers and community-based treatment programs to bridge the gap between research and practice.
The CTN, which was announced in January 1999 with a call for grant applications, was recommended by the 1998 Institute of Medicine Report, Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice, as the single mechanism most likely to improve drug abuse treatment in this country. When complete, the network will consist of 20 to 30 regional research centers. At the local level, each center will be linked with 10 to 15 community treatment programs that represent a variety of treatment settings and patient populations available in that particular region of the country.
The following universities have been selected as the cores for the first five regional centers. Each core will be linked with at least five community treatment programs throughout the region.
- New England Node:
- Yale University, New Haven, CT
- Delaware Valley Node:
- University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
- Mid-Atlantic Node:
- Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
- Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, VA
- Pacific Node:
- University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
- Northwest Node:
- Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, OR
The network will expand as NIDA awards additional annual grants.