The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has awarded a 5-year, $7.5million grant to fund the Big South/West Node of the Clinical Trials Network (CTN). Steven Shoptaw, PhD, Director of the Center for Behavioral & Addiction Medicine and Professor and Vice Chair of Research for the UCLA Department of Family Medicine, will share leadership of the node with Madhukar H. Trivedi, MD, Director of the Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) and Jennifer S. Potter, PhD, MPH, Vice Dean for Research and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio).
The CTN is a collaboration between NIDA, treatment researchers, and community-based service providers working toward new treatment options in community-level clinical practice. The Big South/West Node’s research agenda includes a focus on the fourth wave of the opioid epidemic, building upon the expertise of our investigators in treating stimulant and opioid use disorders. The team has experience with innovative study designs that target all areas of the translational science continuum in order to successfully and significantly improve the care of persons who misuse substances.
UCLA CBAM first joined with UTSW in 2016 as a clinical research site for the CTN-0068 (ADAPT-2) study, which tested the use of extended-release naltrexone plus high-dose bupropion for adults with moderate to severe methamphetamine use disorder. ADAPT-2 was the largest pharmacotherapy trial for the treatment of methamphetamine use disorder conducted to date and this new Node is already in development on exciting new research protocols to be implemented before the end of this year.