CONTENTS

A. NIAAA Budget

Congressional Activity

On July 8, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education held the mark up for the FY2005 Labor, HHS, and Education appropriation bill, which includes funding for NIH. The full committee reported the bill to the House floor on July 14, 2004. The bill would provide $28,526,871,000 for NIH and $441,911,000 for NIAAA. The subcommittee mark is identical to the FY 2005 President's budget request.

The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, HHS, and Education had also scheduled action on its measure for July 8, but the mark up was cancelled. So far, this action has not been rescheduled.

A summary of the President's request is below (in thousands):

B. Director's Activities

Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America Dr. Li gave a plenary lecture on July 20 at the 10th international symposium of the Society of Chinese Scientists in America in Beijing, China. He gave the same talk-"The Global Problem of Alcohol Abuse and Dependence: Genetic and Environmental Correlations"-at Beijing University on July 19.

Complexities of Co-Occurring Conditions NIAAA joined the National Institute on Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and the Health Resources and Services Administration in sponsoring a conference on "Complexities of Co-Occurring Conditions: Harnessing Services Research to Improve Care for Mental, Substance Use, and Medical/Physical Disorders" June 23-25 in Washington, DC. During one of the plenary sessions, Dr. Li made a presentation entitled "Alcohol Use Disorders and Co-Occurring Conditions."

Research Society on Alcoholism At the Research Society on Alcoholism meeting in Vancouver, Dr. Li gave a presentation entitled "NIAAA Update" at a plenary session on June 27.

Teratology Society The Teratology Society is a multidisciplinary scientific society whose members study the causes and biological processes leading to abnormal development and birth defects. At the Society's annual meeting in Vancouver, Dr. Li gave a talk on June 28 entitled "Genetic Polymorphisms: Impact on the Risk of FAS and FASD."

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Dr. Li was invited to give a presentation in Princeton, New Jersey on July 6 as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's President's Speaker Series. His talk was entitled "Alcoholism Begins in Youth: Developing a Health System Response."

C. NIAAA Staff

Markus Heilig, M.D., Ph.D., New NIAAA Clinical Director Dr. Markus Heilig has joined NIAAA as clinical director and chief of the Laboratory of Clinical Studies (LCS) in the Division of Intramural and Clinical and Biological Research (DICBR). Dr. Heilig comes to NIAAA from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, where he had served since 2002 as chief of research and development in the Division of Psychiatry in the southern Clinical Neuroscience Department and from 1997 to 2001 directed an addiction medicine department at Karolinska that conducted preclinical and clinical research and research training in addiction medicine.

Dr. Heilig has a unique strength and interest in translational research in the neurobiology of alcoholism. He has carried out both basic and clinical research on topics ranging from gene expression to treatment of addiction. His research has focused on the neural mechanisms underlying motivation and emotion, with special emphasis on the stress response and anxiety, and on the neurobiological basis of drug and alcohol dependence. He is internationally recognized for his groundbreaking research on neuropeptide Y, a peptide with a major role in emotionality and alcohol-seeking behavior. He is an outstanding clinician and a highly respected neuroscientist who has demonstrated a unique ability to translate preclinical basic neuroscience research into possible new treatments.

Author of the standard addiction medicine textbook used in Sweden, Dr. Heilig has been an advocate for public education to remove the stigma of addiction and counter the popular perception that addiction is the product of a character defect. He also has initiated collaborations among scientists at the Karolinska Institute, the Scripps Research Institute, and the Rockefeller University.

Extramural Staff

Gayle Boyd, Ph.D. Dr. Gayle Boyd has left NIAAA to take a position in NIH's Center for Scientific Review (CSR). She came to NIAAA in 1992 and was program director for research on youth and aging in the then Division of Clinical and Prevention Research. After NIAAA's reorganization, she continued in that capacity in the newly formed Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research (DEPR) and was co-leader of the behavioral and environmental interventions team.

Vivian Faden, Ph.D. Dr. Vivian Faden has been named Associate Director, DEPR. In addition to her DEPR responsibilities, Dr. Faden is co-leader of NIAAA's underage drinking prevention team.

Eugene Hayunga, Ph.D. Dr. Eugene Hayunga, until June chief of NIAAA's Extramural Project Review Branch in the Office of Scientific Affairs (OSA), has left to become Deputy Director of the Office of Extramural Policy, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. With Dr. Hayunga's departure, Dr. Tina Vanderveen has assumed the position of acting chief of the review branch.

Charlene LeFauve, Ph.D. Dr. Charlene LeFauve has left NIAAA to become chief of the Co-Occurring and Homeless Activities Branch in the Division of State and Community Assistance at the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment in SAMHSA. At NIAAA, Dr. LeFauve was a health science administrator in the Division of Treatment and Recovery Research.

Ed Linehan Ed Linehan, long-time NIAAA staff member and institute budget officer for the last three years, is retiring as of September 30. Over the years, he has worked in NIAAA's Office of Scientific Affairs as well as the Financial Management Branch, which has earned the respect of NIH during his tenure as chief.

Kathy Salaita, Ph.D. Dr. Kathy Salaita, a health science administrator in NIAAA since 2001, has left to take a position with CSR. Dr. Salaita oversaw the portfolios on impaired driving and alcohol advertising in DEPR. She was co-leader for the centers and training team.

Elsie Taylor Elsie Taylor has retired from NIAAA after a career that spanned the period during which NIAAA went from a division of the National Institute of Mental Health to an autonomous institute under NIH. When legislation created NIAAA in 1970, Ms. Taylor was working in an intramural laboratory at St. Elizabeth's Hospital on studies looking at alcohol effects. She made the transition to NIAAA's extramural programs, working in the institute's early clinical and psychosocial research branch, and finally in the review branch. Her efforts to assist grantees in dealing with the grants application and award process were widely appreciated in the extramural community.

Intramural Staff

David W. Herion, M.D. Dr. David Herion has been appointed as a staff clinician in the LCS. He will serve as the principal patient care manager for research protocol participants as well as be responsible for efficient operation of other aspects of the clinical research program.

New Research Fellows The following scientists have joined DICBR as fellows: Jose F. Covian-Nares, Ph.D., visiting fellow, Section on Confocal Microscopy, Laboratory of Molecular Physiology; Jessica Holden, Ph.D., postdoctoral intramural research training award fellow in the Unit of Neurotransmitter Signaling, Section of Fluorescence Studies, Laboratory of Membrane Biochemistry and Biophysics (LMBB); Janel M. Boyce-Rustay, Ph.D. and Alicia Izquierdo, Ph.D., postdoctoral intramural research training award fellows in the Section on Behavioral Science and Genetics, Laboratory for Integrative Neuroscience; Olivier Soubias, Ph.D., visiting fellow in the Section of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, LMBB; and Jacob A. Theruvathu, Ph.D., visiting fellow in the Section of Molecular Neurobiology, Laboratory of Neurogenetics.

D. Research Priority Emphasis and Core Support Teams

Extramural Advisory Board Meets NIAAA recently established an Extramural Advisory Board (EAB) intended to provide scientific guidance and assist in setting research priorities for the Institute's extramural programs. Dr. Fulton Crews will give a presentation later today about the EAB process. The EAB will periodically review the NIAAA team portfolios; at the first meeting on August 30-31, the "Etiology of Risk: Genes and Environment" team, headed by Drs. Kendall Bryant and Zhaoxia Ren, presented a review of the current portfolio.

E. NIAAA Research Programs

Extramural Programs

New Alcohol Research Center NIAAA recently awarded a 5-year grant of nearly $10 million to the Boston University School of Public Health to establish an Alcohol Research Center to Prevent Alcohol-Related Problems Among Young People. Boston University professor David Rosenbloom, Ph.D., is the center's director and principal investigator.

Research on College Drinking Interventions Six educational institutions have been approved for funding as a result of the program announcement "Rapid Response to College Drinking Problems." The institutions-the University of Michigan, Western Washington University, University of Rhode Island, State University of New York at Albany, Loyola Marymount University (Los Angeles), and Ohio State University-have been paired with an NIAAA grantee research partner. The purpose of the program announcement was to provide rapid funding for research on interventions to prevent or reduce alcohol-related problems among college students.

Steering Committee on Underage Drinking to Meet On September 20, the newly formed NIAAA Steering Committee on Underage Drinking Research and Prevention will meet for the first time with the institute's underage drinking team. The steering committee is comprised of external scientists with broad and varied expertise in the fields of alcohol and adolescence, the overall developmental processes of adolescence, and policy and communications. The committee's overall mission is to help NIAAA integrate cutting edge knowledge from multiple fields of inquiry into the institute's new initiative on underage drinking. The meeting will take place at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Bethesda.

International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs, and Traffic Safety DEPR director Dr. Ralph Hingson made several presentations at the 17th International Conference on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety which took place in Glasgow, United Kingdom, August 9-13. The sponsoring organization, the International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety (ICADTS), has as its goal the reduction of mortality and morbidity that results from misuse of alcohol and drugs by vehicle operators. As president-elect of ICADTS, Dr. Hingson presented a summary of the 5-day meeting at its concluding plenary session. An article entitled "Underage Drinking: Frequency, Consequences, and Intervention," appears in an issue of the journal Traffic Injury Prevention distributed at the time of the conference.

Research Society on Alcoholism The annual meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism took place this year in Vancouver, British Columbia, June 26-30. Among the 1,310 registrants, 61 were NIAAA employees. NIAAA supported 62 students and 38 post-docs attending the meeting; this includes six Enoch Gordis Research Recognition Awards, four to post-docs and two to students. NIAAA sponsored two satellite sessions at RSA. Dr. Sam Zakhari gave a presentation on "Alcohol Metabolism: New Approaches to Old Questions" at the satellite symposium on "Alcohol and Mitochondrial Metabolism: At the Crossroads of Life and Death." Dr. Diane Lucas co-chaired the symposium entitled "Mechanisms of Alcohol-Mediated Organ and Tissue Damage: Inflammation and Immunity."

In addition, the following NIAAA staff were key participants or co-chairs for other satellite or scientific sessions:

• Drs. Faye Calhoun and Tom Gentry gave presentations at a satellite session entitled "State of the Art Mutual Help Conference."
• Dr. Margaret Mattson was a co-chair/organizer of a satellite program on "Conceptual, Methodological, and Practical Issues in Combination Pharmacotherapy and Behavioral Therapy Trials."
• Dr. Bin Gao moderated a session on liver and alcohol.
• Dr. Raye Litten chaired a session on "Emerging Biomarkers: New Directions and Clinical Applications.
• Dr. Mark Goldman chaired a session on "Design, Analytic Methods, and Outcomes from a Six-Year Multi-Community Nested-Cohort Time-Series Trial: The CMDA Project."
• Dr. Bridget Grant was organizer/chair of a session on "Alcohol, Drug, and Other Psychiatric Disorders in America."
• A number of NIAAA staff members participated in a grantsmanship workshop on June 27.

Conference on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities Dr. Kenneth Warren facilitated a plenary session at a conference sponsored by the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The session was titled "Have We Made Progress in Preventing Fetal Alcohol Syndrome? Insights and Lessons Learned from a 30-Year History." The aim of the conference, which took place in Washington, DC on July 26-28, was to review significant accomplishments in the fields of birth defects and developmental disabilities, and to identify future directions for research and health promotion.

Intramural Programs

Clinical Trial of Cannabinoid A phase II trial has begun in the LCS to test the effectiveness of the cannabinoid CB1 receptor antagonist rimonabant to reduce voluntary ethanol drinking in young, non treatment-seeking, heavy drinking individuals. This is a collaborative study between the DICBR and the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Synthelabo, which has developed rimonabant for the treatment of obesity and smoking cessation. Co-principal investigators are Drs. Ted George and George Kunos.

Collaborative Research Efforts

Rural Underage Drinking Initiative NIAAA is collaborating with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Department of Justice, in OJJDP's FY 2004 "Enforcing the Underage Drinking Laws (EUDL) Discretionary Program: Rural Communities Initiative." Funded NIAAA researchers will assist the four selected states in designing, developing, and evaluating their EUDL rural communities initiatives.

Fostering Social Work Research On June 22, NIAAA's Peggy Murray led an NIH outreach effort to schools of social work in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area, in order to increase proposals in social work research and health. The National Cancer Institute; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Institute of Mental Health; and the National Institute on Drug Abuse also participated, along with the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research, NIH.

Qualitative Research Methods On August 5 to 8, NIAAA supported an NIH-wide initiative, Summer Institute on Qualitative Research Methods, sponsored by the Office of Social and Behavioral Science, NIH. Junior faculty from schools of social work and nursing participated in a five day program designed to increase the rigor in qualitative proposals submitted to the NIH. NIAAA's Peggy Murray made a presentation on NIAAA research priorities.

Research Grant Application and Peer Review Activities

For this review round, 328 new and competing continuation research grant applications were assigned to NIAAA for funding consideration. Extramural Project Review Branch staff completed 23 review meetings to evaluate a total of 152 grant applications, 1 review meeting to evaluate a total of 3 contract proposals, and 1 review meeting to evaluate a total of 38 loan repayment applications. An additional 176 applications were reviewed by study sections of the NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR).

Among the applications reviewed were six for RFA No. AA04-002- Medications Development to Treat Alcoholism and Alcohol-Related Diseases (SBIR/STTR).

Research Reports

The following are examples of recently published reports from research conducted or supported by NIAAA:

NIAAA Press Releases: NESARC Data Depict the Impact of Alcohol and Drug Use and Psychiatric Disorders in the U.S. NIAAA's National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) is continuing to provide a rich harvest of information on the prevalence, demographic characteristics, and associations among alcohol- and drug-use disorders and psychiatric conditions. Since the last council meeting, NIAAA issued three press releases on papers emerging from NESARC. The first paper reported that the number of American adults who abuse alcohol or are dependent rose from 13.8 million (7.41 percent) in 1991-1992 to 17.6 million (8.46 percent) in 2001-2002 (the earlier data come from NIAAA's National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey). The study showed that the rate of alcohol abuse increased from 3.03 to 4.65 percent across the decade while the rate of alcohol dependence declined from 4.38 to 3.81 percent. (Grant, B.F., Dawson, D.A., Stinson, F.S., Chou, S.P., Dufour, M.D., and Pickering, R.P. Drug and Alcohol Dependence 74:223-234, 2004.)

A second paper reported on the prevalence and co-occurrence of substance abuse disorders and mood and anxiety disorders. A key feature of this study is its use of the DSM-IV definitions of independent mood and anxiety disorders to examine the co-occurrence of mental health disorders. Independent mood and anxiety disorders exclude transient cases of these disorders that result from alcohol and/or drug withdrawal or intoxication. NESARC reported that, even when substance-induced mood and anxiety disorders are excluded, comorbidity between substance use and mood and anxiety disorders is pervasive. About 20 percent of persons with a current (within the past year) substance use disorder experience a mood or anxiety disorder within the same time period. Conversely, 20 percent of persons with a current mood or anxiety disorder experience a current substance use disorder. (Grant, B.F., Stinson, F.S., Dawson, D.A., Chou, S.P., Dufour, M.C., Compton, W., Pickering, R.P., and Kaplan, K. Archives of General Psychiatry 61:807-816, 2004.)

Finally, a third paper reported on the prevalence of personality disorders in the U.S. Fully 14.8 percent or 30.8 million Americans meet standard diagnostic criteria for at least one personality disorder. With the exception of histrionic personality disorder, all the personality disorders assessed in the survey were associated with considerable emotional disability and impairment in social and occupational functioning. (Grant, B.F., Hasin, D.S., Stinson, F.S., Dawson, D.A., Chou, S.P., Ruan, W.J., and Pickering, R.P. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 65:948-958, 2004.)

Public use data files for NESARC are available on the NIAAA website under "databases."

Report on Moderate Drinking Based on a review by external researchers of research evidence related to the health risks and potential benefits of moderate alcohol consumption, NIAAA prepared a position paper on the impact on health of moderate drinking. A central point of the paper is that "protective and detrimental levels of alcohol consumption cannot be generalized across the population." Numerous factors that vary with the individual influence alcohol's impact on health, among them age, sex, genetic susceptibility to disease, metabolic rate, comorbid conditions, lifestyle factors, and consumption patterns. Drinking one to two drinks per day is associated with the lowest overall mortality and the pattern of drinking is important; risks for alcohol abuse and/or dependence, for example, jump dramatically for men who exceed four drinks per occasion and for women who exceed three drinks per occasion. (Gunzerath, L., Faden, V., Zakhari, S., and Warren, K. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 28:829-847, 2004.)

A Clue to Stress Responsiveness in Women A study in rhesus macaques reported a difference between males and females in how a gene variant that is also present in humans interacts with early adversity to influence how the animals respond to stress later on. In humans, a variant of the gene coding for a transporter molecule for the neurotransmitter serotonin has been associated with depression in individuals exposed to adversity in childhood. In this study, male macaques who inherited a copy of the gene variant showed a greater response to acute stress (reflected in higher levels of adrenocorticotropic hormone, or ACTH, a measure of the response to stress) than males without the variant. Among females with the variant, only those who had been exposed to a known stressor in early infancy showed a greater stress response later than females without the variant. Further, ACTH after acute stress was higher among these vulnerable females than among males with the anxiety-related gene variant. If research confirms an analogous pattern of female vulnerability in humans, it could help explain why stress-related mood and anxiety disorders are more common in women than men. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. 101:12358-12363, 2004.)

IL-22 Protects Against Liver Injury In human liver disease and animal models, activation of T-cells-a class of immune cells with a variety of roles in the immune response-can both contribute to and protect against liver injury. This paper reveals a mechanism by which T-cells protect against liver injury. In mice in which a form of T-cell mediated hepatitis is induced, T-cells released the cell-signaling molecule interleukin-22 (IL-22). Blocking the action of IL-22 enhanced liver damage in this model, while pretreating mice with recombinant IL-22 protected against it. One mechanism of IL-22's protective effect was its activation of STAT3, a transcription factor known to protect against liver injury. Understanding the immune mechanisms behind liver injury is central to developing new treatments; IL-22 may have potential as a therapeutic drug for liver disease. (Radaeva, S., Sun, R., Pan, H., Hong, F., and Gao, B. Hepatology 39:1332-1342, 2004.)

Ethanol and Cell Death in the Developing Brain Ethanol has been shown to reduce the number of serotonin neurons during fetal development. Results from this study in cultured cells from rats strongly suggest that the neuronal loss is due to increased apoptosis, or programmed cell death. Apoptosis occurs in the course of the normal development of the nervous system. In addition to finding that ethanol increases apoptosis, the study also found that a serotonin-1A receptor agonist (which binds to and activates the receptor) protects the neurons by reducing apoptosis. This finding adds to the growing body of evidence that ethanol-induced cell death in a variety of developing neurons is mediated through apoptotic signaling pathways. (Druse, M.J., Tajuddin, N.F., Gillespie, R.A., Dickson, E., Atieh, M., Pietrzak, C.A., and Le, P.T. Developmental Brain Research 150:79-88, 2004.)

Explaining Alcohol and Adenosine Adenosine is a neurotransmitter known to be involved in the intoxicating effects of alcohol. In cell culture, alcohol increases extracellular adenosine by inhibiting a transporter molecule called ENT-1. This study showed that mice in which the gene for ENT-1 is deleted are less sensitive to alcohol-induced effects like sleepiness and loss of coordination. These mice also consume more alcohol than their littermates, a behavior that parallels the observation in humans that individuals who are less sensitive to alcohol's intoxicating effects tend to drink more alcohol. Treatment of these mice with an agent that activates one type of adenosine receptor (the A1) increased their responsiveness to alcohol and decreased the amount they drank, implicating this receptor in these effects. Besides demonstrating the role of ENT-1 in alcohol's effects in vivo, this work suggests that agents that increase A1 receptor signaling could have a role in reducing excessive alcohol consumption. (Choi, D.-S., Cascini, M.-G., Mailliard, W., Young, H., Paredes, P., McMahon, T., Diamond, I., Bonci, A., and Messing, R.O. Nature Neuroscience 7:855-861, 2004.)

Calcium and Neuronal Migration in Development Migration of immature neurons to their final destination in the brain is a critical step in brain maturation. This study demonstrated that elevations in intracellular calcium regulate the migration process. In a model using slices of the cerebellum from neonatal mice, the frequency of transient calcium elevations correlated with cell motility; migration is completed when there are no more elevations in calcium. The timing of the loss of calcium elevations is the result of internal programming in the cell, but is also influenced by external cues. This process of migration is essential to the final neuronal structure, connections, and differentiation. (Kumada, T. and Komuro, H. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. 101:8479-8484, 2004.)

Red Blood Cell Status Predicts Outcome in Alcoholic Men This study found that in alcoholic men studied approximately one week after detoxification, measures of red blood cell (RBC) status were associated with volume measures of brain white matter and the fluid-filled ventricles in the brain as seen with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Markers of liver function, on the other hand, did not show such an association. Measures of RBC status 4 weeks after admission differentiated between men who maintained sobriety and those who relapsed in the ensuing months. This study is one of the first to use biomarkers to predict length of sobriety and the potential for relapse. Among the questions the work raises, according to the authors, is whether treatments to improve RBC status might help minimize relapse in alcohol patients in those at high risk. (Pfefferbaum, A., Rosenbloom, M.J., Serventi, K.L., and Sullivan, E.V. American Journal of Psychiatry 161:1190-1196, 2004.)

Liver Disease and Intestinal Permeability Heavy alcohol consumption increases the permeability of the intestines to endotoxin, a molecule found in the cell wall of bacteria. Endotoxemia-the presence of endotoxins in blood-plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of alcohol liver disease. Research has found that acetaldehyde-the first product of alcohol metabolism-increases intestinal permeability. This study reports that the amino acid L-glutamine prevents acetaldehyde-induced intestinal permeability to endotoxin. The study found that L-glutamine prevents the increase in intestinal permeability through its effects on receptors for epidermal growth factor, a peptide also known to protect the gastrointestinal mucosa. Studies like this are providing an increasingly detailed picture of how alcoholic liver disease develops, as well as clues to strategies for preventing it. (Seth, A., Basuroy, S., Sheth, P. and Rao, R.K. American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology 287:G510-G517, 2004.)

Alcohol and Bone Formation Heavy alcohol consumption is a risk factor for osteoporosis and bone fracture. Previous studies in alcoholics have noted an increase in bone marrow fat content along with low bone density. This study found that alcohol causes an increase in fat formation in bone-at the expense of bone formation-through its effect on the differentiation of stem cells in marrow that give rise to both bone- and fat-producing cells. This work helps to explain previous observations in alcoholics and may provide a clue to intervention. (Wezeman, F.H. and Gong, Z. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 28:1091-1101, 2004.)

F. Outreach

National Efforts

Leadership Supports Legislative Efforts The Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free announced their support in July for two U.S. Senate bills related to underage drinking. The first bill, the "Sober Truth on Preventing (STOP) Underage Drinking Act," was introduced in Congress by Senators Mike DeWine (R-OH) and Chris Dodd (D-CT). This bill recommends funding for four major areas of underage drinking policy development:

• The bill would provide $2 million to create an interagency coordinating committee to coordinate the efforts and expertise of various federal agencies to combat underage drinking. It would also mandate an annual report to Congress from the committee and require an annual report card from the Department of Health and Human Services on efforts at the state level to combat underage drinking.
• $1 million would fund continuation of the Ad Council campaign directed at adults (the campaign received $800,000 last year).
• $5 million would go towards enhancement grants to the Drug-Free Communities program to be directed at the problem of underage drinking. (The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy directs the Drug-Free Communities Support Program in partnership with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Program, Department of Justice.) A new program would be created to provide competitive grants to states, non-profits, and institutions of higher education to create statewide coalitions to prevent underage drinking and alcohol abuse by university students, which would also be funded at $5 million annually.
• Finally, the bill would provide $6 million to increase research and data collection at the federal level on underage drinking. This information would include the types and brands of alcohol that kids use and the short- and long-term impact of underage drinking upon adolescent brain development.

The second bill, introduced by Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), would establish the first ever childhood drinking semi-postal stamp. Semi-postal stamps cost more than the postal rate; the amount in addition to the rate is given to a charity after costs. The new semi-postal will raise awareness about the dangers associated with alcohol use by children and fund prevention and education.

NIAAA Education Programs Receive Coverage NIAAA education efforts will be featured in this month's Scholastic Administr@tor magazine. Scholastic Administr@tor is published quarterly and includes a biannual technology buying guide supplement. Scholastic Administr@tor's circulation reaches 87 percent of all U.S. school administrators, and includes an exclusive distribution to members of the National Association of Elementary School Principals and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. This piece will highlight our science education programs, and how these programs can be seen as part of the big picture in preventing underage drinking through innovative technology and hands-on, engaging classroom lab activities and discussions.

SADD Honors Leadership Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) presented the Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free with its Outstanding Contribution Award. The award recognizes an individual or group that in the recent past has made a contribution that stands out in size, creativity, sacrifice, or commitment to the themes of SADD. Lori Hauser Holden, Missouri's First Lady and a co-chair of Leadership, accepted the award on behalf of the group.

Pastoral Counseling for Alcohol Problems On July 15-16, NIAAA collaborated with the National Association of Children of Alcoholics and the Johnson Institute (a voluntary organization aimed at expanding public awareness of addiction as a treatable illness) in assembling an expert panel of clergy, faculty in pastoral counseling, and seminary directors that provided feedback to NIAAA on the content of a curriculum for ministers and pastoral counselors on prevention and treatment of alcohol use disorders. This work built on a consensus conference sponsored by SAMHSA that developed core competencies for clergy working with individuals and families experiencing alcohol problems.

Local Outreach

Inner City Science Literacy In July, NIAAA's Jason Lazarow worked with the Howard University Collaborative Research Center on a pilot program for summer school students in an inner city high school. The program focused on increasing science literacy in the students as well as stimulating interest in careers in scientific research.

Teaching Children with FAS As part of the Annual Society of Teratology Meeting in June in Vancouver, British Columbia, NIAAA and the University of California, San Diego, conducted a workshop for science and special education teachers from the Vancouver school district. The program featured materials for teachers working with children born with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) as well as other alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorders and science education materials on FAS that can be used as a prevention message for teens in middle and high school. NIAAA's Jason Lazarow led the science education workshop.

G. Multi-Media Products from NIAAA

Awards for NIAAA Products An NIAAA publication, public service announcement (PSA), and website all won awards this summer. The revised 2004 edition of Helping Patients With Alcohol Problems: A Health Practitioner's Guide received a Merit Award in the 2004 National Health Information Awards competition. The competition is organized by the Health Information Resource Center, a national professional clearinghouse for consumer health information. The center also sponsors the WWW Health Awards, a program from which the NIAAA College Website, www.collegedrinkingprevention.gov, won a bronze award. The WWW Health Awards provide a "seal of quality" to the best health-related websites for consumers and professionals. Winners are permitted to place the logo on their websites which serves as a guarantee of quality and legitimacy. The sites are judged on accuracy, success in reaching the targeted audience, and overall quality.

Finally, the television PSA, The Party's Over, won an Axiem award. The Axiem program reviews PSAs submitted from firms worldwide on consumer-oriented topics.

Publications and Periodicals

Alcohol Research & Health Two issues of the journal Alcohol Research & Health (AR&H) have been published in recent months: "Alcoholic Brain Disease" and "Alcoholic Liver Disease: Part I: An Overview." Part II "Mechanisms of Injury" is being printed. Upcoming issues will focus on screening and brief interventions, young adult drinking, and health services research/economics. At the last Council meeting, it was suggested that an AR&H issue be devoted to NESARC findings. That topic has been approved and work has begun. Full text of the published journals is available on the NIAAA website.

Alcohol Alert Two issues have been printed and disseminated: "Neuroscience Research and Therapeutic Targets" and "Alcohol: An Important Women's Health Issue." The AR&H Editorial Advisory Board recommended that we repackage the AR&H issues for busy health care practitioners. Following up on the board's recommendation, the issue on women is a condensed version of the AR&H issue "Women and Alcohol: An Update" and presents a new visual design. Both Alert issues are available full text on the NIAAA website.

NIAAA Newsletter The Spring/Summer 2004 issue was disseminated at RSA as well as on the NIAAA website. The newsletter featured articles on the new NESARC data, an update on NIAAA's underage drinking initiative, new Institute publications, personnel news, and a calendar of events.

Electronic Media

NIAAA Website for Middle School Students In late July, a diverse group of 11- to 13-year-olds in Baltimore and Miami provided feedback on the revised prototype for The Coolspot, the NIAAA website for middle school students. The focus testing included four one-on-one interviews (for usability matters) and four groups of six to eight children (for general input on the content and design). According to a preliminary report, the Coolspot ". . . easily engages children throughout the age range, 11-13 years. Intended messages were easily comprehended. When asked 'What three things will you definitely remember that you learned from this website?,' responses included: 'Why I shouldn't drink,' 'To stand up for yourself and resist peer pressure,' and 'Different ways to say no, and what way is best.'" As a result of the focus testing, a number of relatively minor content and design changes have been made, including changes to improve the usability of some interactive components. The current Coolspot is on a SAMHSA server; the revised site will go "live" in late September on an NIH server.

New on the NIAAA Website New items added recently to NIAAA's website include the following:

• NIAAA Director's statement to the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees for the FY2005 President's budget request for NIAAA.
• NIAAA Director's statement to the House appropriations committee "theme" hearing, "Substance Abuse and Mental Health Research and Services Panel."
• ETOH portal. This page includes links to a number of reference databases and alcohol-related websites. It also includes a link to the archived ETOH database produced by NIAAA from 1972 through December 2003.
• NESARC website. This site contains the public use data files of the NIAAA-conducted and sponsored National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.

Science Curricula

Social Work Education for the Prevention and Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorders NIAAA has developed a curriculum for social work educators to prepare professionals to work effectively with clients with alcohol use problems. The curriculum has lecture-ready modules with Powerpoint® presentations, handout materials, classroom activities, and accompanying case examples. It is aimed at making sure that social workers have the knowledge and skills for the identification, assessment, treatment, and referral of clients with alcohol use problems. The curriculum can be ordered online at NIAAA's website www.niaaa.nih.gov.

H. What's Ahead

Mechanisms of Alcohol-Associated Cancers In October, NIAAA is the lead institute co-sponsoring an international symposium on "Mechanisms of Alcohol-Associated Cancers." Other NIH components co-sponsoring the symposium are the Office of Dietary Supplements, the Office of Rare Diseases, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Scientists will address a broad array of questions, including whether alcohol is cancer-causing or promoting/modifying, what the relationship is between alcohol-metabolizing enzyme polymorphisms and cancer, and how the alcohol metabolite acetaldehyde damages DNA. The meeting takes place Oct. 6-7 at the Four Points by Sheraton Bethesda. At NIAAA, contact Vishnu Purohit, Ph.D., 301-443-2689, e-mail vpurohit@mail.nih.gov.

Keller Lecture Dr. George Koob will give the 2004 Keller Lecture on November 9 on "The Neurobiology of Alcoholism: Dysregulation of the Brain Reward and Stress Systems." Dr. Koob is professor of Neuropharmacology and director of the Division of Psychopharmacology, The Scripps Institute, La Jolla, California.

Prepared: October 2004