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APA is the first association to receive the National Institute on Drug Abuse Institutional Physician Scientist Development Program Award.
Timothy Condon, Ph.D., director of NIDA's Office of Science Policy, announced the $3.7 million specialized career development award to APA at the Board of Trustees meeting in Washington, D.C., last month.
"After APA's grant application was submitted, it did outstanding in our peer review process," explained Condon.
The purpose of the grant is to recruit, train, and retain psychiatrist researchers to meet the growing needs in clinical and health services drug abuse research, said Condon in his presentation on joint APA and NIDA activities. He also mentioned that NIDA and APA are cosponsoring a special research track on drug addiction at APA's 1998 annual meeting program in Toronto.
APA President Herbert Sacks, M.D., told Condon, "On behalf of APA, we want to express our gratitude for your support of the wonderful work being done here by Harold Pincus and [APA Medical Director] Steven Mirin. I hope to demonstrate that this award will yield fruitful work in drug abuse research to help people who are suffering from drug addictions."
Harold Pincus, M.D., an APA deputy medical director and director of the Office of Research, told Psychiatric News later, "We are absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to develop this new initiative, the Drug Abuse Research Scholars Program in Psychiatry. The program represents a powerful collaboration between APA's Office of Research, Council on Addiction Psychiatry, the American Association of Chairs of Departments of Psychiatry, and other academic and substance abuse groups in the field and leading departments of psychiatry."
The program will also "link resources within and across academic institutions in psychiatric research, drug abuse research, and health services research to establish a high-level consortium," Pincus commented. The new initiative will provide intensive mentored training for six drug abuse research scholars, who will each receive an annual base stipend of $75,000.
Resource funding will be available to cover tuition, fees, books, some research expenses, and travel to scientific meetings, according to an announcement from APA's Office of Research. Scholars will design, implement, analyze, and publish results from original research projects and meet several times throughout the course of the program. Training will occur in research-intensive departments of psychiatry under the guidance of an appropriate senior mentor, the announcement states.
The program anticipates starting to accept applications in the fall. An advisory committee composed of leading investigators in drug abuse, health services, and other areas of psychiatric research will establish program policy and select the scholars.
Potential applicants and mentors should contact either Pincus, the program's principal investigator, at (202) 682-6238 or e-mail hpincus@psych.org, or Project Manager Ernesto Guerra at (202) 682-6255 or e-mail eguerra@psych.org.