Federal Grant Award Summary

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) awarded a $192,930 K24 Mentoring Project Grant to the University of California, San Diego to support mentoring and capacity-building in patient-oriented research addressing the intersection of substance use and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The award, initiated May 1, 2026, and extending through April 30, 2031, provides protected time for the principal investigator to mentor the next generation of researchers investigating central nervous system dysfunction in individuals with HIV who use substances. The project specifically focuses on characterizing clinical-biological profiles and health outcomes associated with methamphetamine and cannabis co-use in people with HIV on antiretroviral therapy, leveraging data from active National Institutes of Health–funded studies and retrospective assessments.

Under structured mentoring and individualized development plans, trainees will receive investigator-level training in study design and implementation, recruitment and informed consent procedures, clinical and neurobehavioral assessment, data quality assurance, multimodal data integration and analysis, professional development, and research dissemination. This K24 award falls under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), which supports basic, clinical, translational, and implementation research addressing substance use, addiction, and related health outcomes including HIV/AIDS, with the goal of developing new knowledge and approaches for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of drug use and addiction.