Behavior, Biology, and Chemistry: Translational Research in Addiction

This renewal application requests 3 years of support to continue a highly successful international scientific meeting entitled Behavior, Biology and Chemistry: Translational Research in Addiction (BBC) that has been held annually in San Antonio Texas since 2009. In addition to this grant as well as a previous NIH grant, BBC meetings have received significant financial and institutional support from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and several other universities. The 2-day meeting is attended by a broad range of addiction researchers, from high school to undergraduate and graduate students, from postdoctoral fellows to senior scientists. BBC meeting attendees represent a range of disciplines from molecular and cellular biology to chemistry and psychiatry. A mixture of junior and senior investigators as well as pre- and post- graduate students provides role models for young scientists while giving them an opportunity to present their own research in a meeting where the threshold for presentation is lower than most international meetings. The transdisciplinary and translational theme fosters new scientific initiatives leading to new collaborations and promotes thinking unconstrained by traditional disciplines. The BBC meeting provides scientific and career development training for the next generation of addiction researchers and, in the process, provides a review and discussion of new and exciting topics in addiction research. A plenary symposium brings together experts that provide a state-of-the-art overview (and published archive) in a specific area of addiction research. The meeting includes open communications (2 sessions are exclusively for presentations by trainees), a poster session, student competitions, as well as several invited speakers bridging chemistry, biology and behavior in addiction research. Proceedings from plenary symposia have been and will continue to be published in a peer- reviewed scientific journal. The specific aims of this meeting are the following: I) provide young scientists a low threshold opportunity to present data to an expert audience; 2) give trainees, especially women and those from underrepresented populations, a low cost and convenient opportunity to interact with world class addiction researchers; 3) provide a stimulating venue for interactions among a diverse group of addiction researchers; and 4) foster new and innovative approaches to the development of medications for addiction. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This renewal application requests three years of support to continue a highly successful scientific meeting that brings together students, junior and senior scientists from a broad range of disciplines (cellular/molecular biology to chemistry to psychiatry) to promote new collaborations and creative transdisciplinary and translational thinking about developing medications for addiction. This low cost and convenient meeting introduces young scientists, especially underrepresented minorities and women, to state-of-the-art research in addiction biology.