Planned Meetings

NIDA will host Blending Clinical Practice & Research: Forging Partnerships in the Great Lakes States to Enhance Drug Addiction Treatment at the Renaissance Marriott in Detroit, Michigan September 27-28, 2004. This two-day conference will provide an opportunity for clinicians and researchers to examine cutting-edge findings about drug use and addiction and their application to clinical practice.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse is organizing a research planning meeting entitled Drug Abuse: A Workshop on Behavioral and Economic Research. The meeting will be held October 18-20, 2004 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Bethesda Maryland. The conference will explore the research potential of macro-environmental, behavior economic and neuro-economic approaches to drug abuse. Meyer Glantz, Ph.D. and Yonette Thomas, Ph.D. will chair the meeting that is being organized by NIDA staff.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) will be sponsoring a mini-convention on Frontiers in Addiction Research on Friday, October 22, 2004. The mini-convention, organized by Drs. Rita Liu, David Shurtleff and Cathrine Sasek, will be held in conjunction with this year's Society for Neuroscience (SfN) Annual meeting at the San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California. NIDA 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 and related areas.

Dr. Steven Grant is participating in the organization of a meeting of the economics of substance abuse, tentatively entitled Drug Abuse: A Workshop on Behavioral and Economic Research to be held in Bethesda, MD in October 2004. Dr. Grant will be chairing a session on neuroeconomics.

Dr. Steven Grant participated in the organization of and will be co-chairing a symposium entitled Creative Directions in Imaging at the NIDA mini-convention satellite meeting on Frontiers in Addiction Research prior the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience to be held in San Diego in October 2004.

Dr. Nora D. Volkow will make a presentation for the NIH Medicine for the Public Lecture Series on November 9, 2004. The lectures are held at the Masur Auditorium on the NIH Campus. The title of her lecture is "Addiction to Medications: What Are the Risks and Who is Vulnerable?"

On December 2-3, 2004, a meeting is planned by the Behavioral and Integrative Treatment Branch and the Services Research Branch entitled Developing Efficacious Behavioral Therapies for Criminal Justice Involved Populations. Drs. Cece McNamara, Lisa Onken, Melissa Racioppo, and Redonna Chandler are organizing the workshop. The purpose of the meeting is to bring together experts in behavioral treatment, criminology, and basic science to facilitate development of new treatments for drug abuse and dependence targeting criminal and juvenile justice-involved populations. Challenges and barriers to designing effective proposals within the constraints of protecting prisoners in research will be discussed.

Dr. Steven Grant will be chairing a symposium entitled Predictors of Treatment Response and Relapse: Neurobiological Markers at the annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology to be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico in December 2004.

Dr. Steven Grant will be co-chairing a study group with Dr. Celeste Napier of Loyola University entitled Is a Wider Brain Circuitry Needed To Account for Drug Abuse? Implications for Psychiatry of Addiction and Addiction Therapy at the annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology to be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico in December 2004.

Drs. Eve Reider and Elizabeth Robertson will host a two-day meeting on January 25 and 26, 2005 entitled Youth with Multiple Problems: How They Got There and What to Do About It. The meeting will be held at the Bethesda Marriott, Bethesda, MD.

Drs. Elizabeth Robertson and Eve Reider are working with Steven Hornberger of the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) to plan a state of the science meeting entitled Pathways To and From: Foster Care and Drug Abuse. The meeting will take place in early winter.

National CTN Steering Committee Meetings are planned for the following dates and locations: September 29-30, 2004, Detroit, Michigan; February 7-9, 2005, San Francisco, California; and April 11-13, 2005, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

The CTN Genetics Special Interest Group will hold a workshop on September 26, 2004, from 6:00-9:00 p.m. before the NIDA Blending Meeting in Detroit. The meeting will address the following: Can genes predict who does well and who doesn't in clinical trials? How are genetics studies done? What will they look like in the CTN? Will they help us understand addiction? Will they point to new treatments? Will they change the stigma against our patients/clients? Are there ethical issues? What will CTPs do in genetics studies? How will CTPs be involved in decision-making? The meeting is open to all interested persons.

The CTN Data and Safety Monitoring Board will meet November 16-17, 2004 and March 10-11, 2005 in Rockville Maryland. The group will review the continuing progress of the CTN's protocols.