PROVIDENCE — Brown University has been awarded a $12.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to launch a new Center of Biomedical Research Excellence to study the links between substance misuse and chronic diseases, the university said Tuesday.
The five-year grant, beginning Aug. 1, will allow the university’s School of Public Health to establish a clinical laboratory for biological addiction research at Brown and to support four early-career faculty members as they study substance use and chronic diseases at the Center for Addiction and Disease Risk Exacerbation, according to a Brown news release.
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“Everyone knows about the relationship between tobacco use and lung cancer, but there are many other links between substance use and chronic diseases,” said Peter Monti, director of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown and a professor of behavioral and social sciences who will lead the new COBRE. “Understanding the mechanisms through which substance use affects chronic disease is a central part of the research we endeavor to do with this grant. If we can reduce the burden of substance use — for example, smoking and its impact on cardiovascular disease — there will be a trickle-down effect on health and health care cost savings.”
The NIH’s Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence, or COBRE, program focuses on developing institutional research infrastructure and helping promising early-career investigators establish research projects so they can successfully compete for additional federal funding, according to Brown.
The grant for Brown’s Center for Addiction and Disease Risk Exacerbation, or CADRE, will enable Monti and other faculty members to add to Brown’s psychological and social addiction research, and to study the biological aspects of addiction, the university said.
The new laboratory at CADRE will measure chemical markers, such as those that indicate inflammation or stress. Faculty members are expected to research factors such as the interplay of alcohol and HIV on inflammation and whether cannabis can substitute for opioids in treating rheumatoid arthritis.
The lab will be staffed by a full-time research nurse and will be led by Jennifer Tidey, a professor of behavioral and social sciences, and psychiatry and human behavior. Eventually, the services at the lab will be available to all Brown researchers, Monti said.
In addition, the grant will fund two $50,000 pilot projects each year focused on the higher burden of substance use and chronic disease among racial and ethnic minorities, Brown said.
It also will provide financial support for the center to recruit and fund two postdoctoral fellows from groups underrepresented in biomedical sciences.
The center will capitalize on other COBREs at Brown and its affiliated hospitals — including Brown’s Center for Central Nervous System Function, Butler Hospital’s Center for Neuromodulation, Rhode Island Hospital’s Center of Biomedical Research Excellence on Opioids and Overdose, and Advance Clinical and Translational Research.
While one of the principle researchers and their area of focus has not been named yet, three have already decided on their research directions:
- Elizabeth Aston, assistant professor of behavioral and social sciences, will study the effects of cannabis components on pain levels, mood and inflammation for people suffering from rheumatoid arthritis
- Carolina Haass-Kofffler, assistant professor of behavioral and social sciences, will study the possibility that oxytocin can reduce stress-induced cravings for opioids
- Mollie Monnig, assistant professor of behavioral and social sciences, plans to look at how alcohol use and HIV can interact on inflammation in the brain and the rest of the human body.
William Hamilton is a PBN staff writer. He can be reached at Hamilton@PBN.com.
