This $2,312,085 Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) will fund research at Boston University Medical Campus and Boston Medical Center Corporation to investigate the mechanisms of persistent inflammasome activation in myeloid cells, particularly microglia, in the context of HIV infection and opioid use disorder (OUD). The research aims to delineate how HIV infection and opioid exposure activate the...
This $2,223,769 Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under CFDA 93.279 Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs will support a comprehensive investigation into the mechanistic intersection between HIV infection and opioid use, and their combined impact on neuroinflammation and neurotoxicity. The research team at the University of California, San Diego will analyze post-mortem brain specimens from individuals with and without HIV, with varying levels of opioid...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), will provide $234,000.00 to Georgetown University to study the effects of opioids on HIV transcription and latency. The research will utilize a novel dual fluorescent and bioluminescent HIV virus to visualize and measure the impact of opioids like fentanyl, morphine, and methadone on HIV proviral transcription in microglia and astrocytes. The project aims...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), provides $751,043 to the University of Massachusetts Medical School to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the co-occurrence of opioid use disorder (OUD), major depressive disorder (MDD), and HIV in the human brain. The research will use a combination of single-cell sequencing technologies, such as single-nucleus RNA-sequencing...
This $1,594,478 federal Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) will support a 5-year prospective, observational study of 300 participants initiating treatment with medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). The key objectives are to: 1) curate a dataset of craving patterns during MOUD using continuous wearable sensor data; 2) model craving trajectories and examine factors associated with opioid use...
This $804,728 Project Grant awarded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) aims to investigate the role of the cysteinyl leukotriene-cysteinyl leukotriene receptor 1 (cysLT-cysLTR1) axis in promoting HIV persistence and brain injury in the presence of methamphetamine (meth) and combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). The research will utilize in vitro and in vivo approaches, including single-cell and single-nuclei RNA...
This Project Grant award, totaling $3,904,555.00, was provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279). The funding will support research to investigate the interactions between fentanyl, its synthetic analogues, and HIV/AIDS that may underlie increased neurotoxicity and cognitive impairment. The research aims to systematically explore the mechanisms by which fentanyl, a potent opioid, exacerbates the pathobiology of...
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) awarded a $683,583 Project Grant under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) to New York University School of Medicine. The purpose of this 2-year grant, running from August 1, 2024 to July 31, 2026, is to use an agent-based computer simulation model to estimate the potential impacts of four alternative methadone treatment policy scenarios on methadone initiation, retention, opioid overdose, and disparities in New York State. The...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), provides $1,481,760.00 to Emory University to conduct research on the impact of methamphetamine use on inflammation, immunity, and the HIV reservoir in people living with HIV (PWH) who are on antiretroviral therapy (ART). The key objectives of this 5-year project are to: 1) determine how methamphetamine induces inflammasome activation and inflammation in...
This $4,920,000 federal Project Grant awarded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) will fund a randomized controlled trial to investigate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of intramuscular naltrexone as a preventive measure for opioid overdose in individuals using stimulants and living with or at risk of HIV. The study will be conducted at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) at...
This Project Grant award of $4,801,857.00 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) will support research to compare the effects of different medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) on neuroinflammation and neurocognition in people living with HIV (PLWH). The goal is to assess how opioid agonist (methadone, buprenorphine) and antagonist (XR-naltrexone) MOUD therapies impact the epigenetic state and activation of myeloid cells in the central nervous system of PLWH, and how these changes relate to cognitive function. The research will utilize longitudinal cerebrospinal fluid biomarker assessments and single-cell epigenomic profiling at the Yale University research site, with a sub-award to Johns Hopkins University to support the neuropsychiatric study design and analysis. This work aims to advance the understanding of how specific MOUD treatments interact with the central nervous system in PLWH, which could lead to improved treatment approaches and outcomes.