Planned Meetings

NIDA is sponsoring a mini-convention, on Frontiers in Addiction Research which is comprised of 8 satellite symposia at the Society for Neuroscience 33rd Annual Meeting on November 7, 2003 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This convention will bring together an exciting group of participants from a wide array of scientific disciplines to share advances and discuss future directions in the neuroscience of drug abuse related areas.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is organizing a special research-based track Integrating the Science of Addiction into Psychiatric Practice to include a number of symposia, workshops, forums, and invited speakers, at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) May 1-6, 2004 in New York City. This is the second time NIDA has collaborated with APA to produce a major track at the APA meeting where the attendance runs at about 20,000. The first NIDA series with APA in 1998, "Drug Addiction: A Treatable Disease" was extremely popular, well attended and provided attendees with an opportunity to hear first hand about new advances, and prevention and treatment approaches that may not be published until months or years later. The program also provided an opportunity for medical students, residents, fellows, and faculty to meet both formally and informally with addiction specialists and researchers to discuss opportunities for pursing research careers in the substance abuse area. For these reasons, and because numerous science advances have been made in understanding the brain substrates and contributing factors that lead to comorbidity between drug abuse and mental illness, there is renewed need for this special series that focuses on drug abuse.

A National CTN Steering Committee Meetings is planned for January 26-28, 2004 in Tucson, Arizona.

A National meeting, adjunct with the January 2004 CTN Steering Committee Meeting, is planned to address challenges and opportunities in treating addicted patients with co-morbid infectious disease. Recommendations are expected from this meeting to guide the research portfolio development.