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CMSRU research team awarded R01 grant

The National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health has awarded an R01 grant to Brad Fischer, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical sciences, Thomas Keck, Ph.D., associate professor in Rowan’s College of Science and Math, and Diana Martinez, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical sciences, for their project “Combination drug therapy to treat pain with minimal or no abuse potential and side-effects.” The grant is for $389,042 for the first year, with potential funding over the total project of $1,888,174.

The R01 is one of the largest grants awarded to independent investigators by the National Institutes of Health and provides up to 5 years of funding. This grant is a milestone for CMSRU, as it is the first de novo R01 awarded directly to the school. This project aims to develop a new class of opioid analgesics that have a greatly reduced potential for dependency and abuse. Opiate dependency and abuse affect millions of Americans leading to thousands of deaths per year.  If successful, this project could revolutionize acute and chronic pain management for millions of patients.