smoking with $9 million grant
The Yale Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center (TTURC) has been awarded over $9 million to continue its studies through September 2009.
The Yale TTURC is one of seven research centers that will be funded over the next five years by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the National Cancer
In its quest to find new pharmacological and behavioral solutions for smokers, the Yale TTURC will build upon several breakthrough developments that suggest specific factors make it harder for some people to quit.
"The center's new round of studies will find solutions for subgroups of smokers who find it particularly hard to quit," says Dr. Stephanie O'Malley, the TTURC principal investigator as well as a professor and director of the Substance Abuse Research Division in the Department of Psychiatry.
"Those subgroups include women, people who drink, people who are worried about their weight, and people who are depressed and/or anxious," she says. "While these factors have been studied independently in the past, the Yale TTURC renewal will examine how the factors interact with one another, as they might in a typical smoker."
Accomplishments from the initial round of funding to the Yale TTURC include:
* discovering that receptors for nicotine in the brain modulate brain circuits related to mood;
* identifying molecular pathways in the brain that might be important for the transition from nicotine use to addiction;
* determining that brain nicotine receptors are critical for the therapeutic action of antidepressants;
* developing a new radiotracer that will not only be used to examine the effects of nicotine on the brain, but will also allow researchers to determine if nicotine acetylcholine receptor levels are altered in Alzheimer's disease, alcoholism, major depression and schizophrenia;
* discovering that selegiline hydrochloride, a medicine used to treat Parkinson's disease, may help smokers quit;
* determining that there is a market for new smoking cessation treatments, if they are more effective and if they can help people avoid weight gain while quitting; and
* making associations between that funding and key variables of interest including public opinion, the state's smoking rate and whether the state is a major producer of tobacco.
In the next phase of studies, the Yale TTURC will examine the following: "Animal Models to Understand Risk Factors for Treatment Resistance," Marina R. Picciotto, associate professor of psychiatry, pharmacology and neurobiology; "Modeling Smoking Relapse Behavior for Drug Development," Sherry McKee, assistant professor of psychiatry; "Targeted Interventions for Weight Concerned Smokers," Stephanie P. O'Malley; "Imaging Nicotinic and GABAergic Markers in Tobacco Smokers," Julie Staley, assistant professor of psychiatry, and Graeme Mason, associate professor of psychiatry and diagnostic radiology (see related story, below).
For more information, visit the website at www.quitwithyale.org/news/renewal.
T H I S
Institute. The seven research centers will receive about $12 million a year, with about $1.7 million to $2 million of that going to Yale each year.
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