Amy Hauck Newman, Ph.D., has been appointed the Scientific Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA) Intramural Research Program (IRP) in Baltimore. NIDA is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Dr. Newman has served as NIDA’s IRP Acting Scientific Director for the past two years. She is also Chief of NIDA’s Molecular Targets and Medications Discovery Branch, and Director of the NIDA IRP Medication Development Program. She has coauthored more than 300 original articles and reviews on the design, synthesis, and evaluation of central nervous system (CNS) active agents as potential treatment medications for substance use disorders, with an emphasis on selective ligands for the dopaminergic system. She is also an inventor on several licensed NIH patents.
"Dr. Newman will continue to bring tremendous strength to NIDA’s robust intramural research portfolio," said NIDA Director Nora D. Volkow, M.D. "She has served exceptionally as our Acting Scientific Director, and her valuable work on CNS agents is bringing us closer to new and better medicines for the treatment of addiction."
In 2019, Dr. Newman received the NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Mentoring Award from the NIH Office of the Director. In 2018, she was honored as a "Remarkable Woman in Medicinal Chemistry" at the 255th American Chemical Society National Meeting. In 2016, she was the first woman to receive the Philip Portoghese Lectureship Award, awarded by the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, American Chemical Society. In 2014, she received the Marian W. Fischman Lectureship Award from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence.
Dr. Newman received her doctorate in medicinal chemistry from the Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, under the mentorship of Richard Glennon, Ph.D. For her postdoctoral studies, she joined the laboratory of Kenner Rice, Ph.D., at NIH, where she conducted total opiate synthesis as a NIDA-funded NIH National Research Service Award fellow.
"As a career NIH scientist, it is indeed an honor and privilege to lead the NIDA IRP in cutting edge basic, preclinical and clinical addiction science to be translated into the prevention and treatment of substance use disorders," said Dr. Newman.
Dr. Newman officially began her new position at the NIDA IRP on November 22, 2020.
For more information, go to Dr. Amy Newman.
Contact: NIDA press office at media@nida.nih.gov or 301-443-6245. Follow NIDA on Twitter and Facebook.
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About the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA): NIDA is a component of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIDA supports most of the world’s research on the health aspects of drug use and addiction. The Institute carries out a large variety of programs to inform policy, improve practice, and advance addiction science. For more information about NIDA and its programs, visit www.nida.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
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