Over the past two decades, Dr. Kathleen A. Grant has achieved eminence as a leading investigator of the behavioral pharmacology of alcohol abuse and alcoholism. Employing a variety of animal models, she and her colleagues have studied the pharmacological processes whereby alcohol produces the subjective effects associated with intoxication. To date, Dr. Grant’s research team has identified major excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitter receptor systems that mediate intoxication. Her studies have also shown that endogenous steroids can influence the behavioral effects of alcohol.
Using self-administration procedures, Dr. Grant and her colleagues investigate the influence of variables such as genetic composition, sex, age, and stress on the risk for heavy drinking in populations of monkeys and other animals. The consequences of heavy drinking are investigated by looking at changes in gene expression of proteins, through brain imaging studies, and by studies of liver damage and hormonal changes. She also examines alcohol’s effect on sleep patterns and overall circadian rhythm.
Dr. Grant plays a key role in the NIAAA-supported Integrative Neuroscience Initiative on Alcoholism (INIA), a major effort to define the brain circuits and mechanisms that underlie behavioral responses to chronic and excessive alcohol consumption. She serves as principal investigator of an INIA project that involves a consortium of investigators who employ a wide range of research technologies to increase our understanding of the molecular, cellular, and systems-based changes that take place in the brain as a consequence of the interaction of alcohol and stress. Through these studies, Dr. Grant and her INIA collaborators will help to define an individual's risk for the development of alcoholism and make progress towards discovering novel, effective, and tailored interventions and treatments.
Dr. Grant is a Professor in the Department of Behavioral Neurosciences at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU), and a senior scientist in the Division of Neuroscience at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC), positions she has held since 2005.
Having begun her alcohol research career in 1978 as an undergraduate at Santa Clara University, she earned her Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Washington in 1984. Following a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago, Dr. Grant took an appointment as a Staff Fellow at the NIAAA in 1987, becoming a NIAAA Senior Staff Fellow in 1990. She then joined the faculty at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in 1991, where she advanced from assistant professor to professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology until assuming her current positions at OHSU and ONPRC.
Dr. Grant has served in numerous leadership and advisory positions in the alcohol research field. She was elected President of the Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA) in 2005, and she currently chairs several RSA committees. From 2003 to 2006, Dr. Grant chaired the NIAAA Board of Scientific Counselors, and in 2005 she received the Bowles Lectureship Award from the University of North Carolina’s Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies. She has participated on study sections and review groups for NIH and other funding agencies, and she has served on editorial boards of numerous scientific journals.
Our current understanding of the behavioral pharmacology of alcohol abuse and alcoholism owes much to Dr. Grant’s research leadership. NIAAA is pleased to honor Dr. Grant with the Mark Keller Award.
Prepared: September 22, 2008