Scottsdale, Arizona

The 2001 annual ISGIDAR Scientific Meeting will be held on Saturday June 17th at the Scottsdale Princess, Scottsdale, AZ. As usual, the meeting will be held as a satellite session immediately preceding the annual scientific meeting of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence. We are hoping for an excellent series of scientific papers to be presented between 9 am and 5 pm (the program will be posted on http://isgidar.org approximately two weeks before the meeting). The business meeting will be held immediately after the scientific sessions.

We now encourage the submission of individual papers for the upcoming meeting. To present a paper at the ISGIDAR meeting, please send an abstract by May 21, 2001 to Jim Zacny at the address listed above. Abstracts should conform to the general format used for abstract submissions to the CPDD Meetings although length and other formatting details need not be adhered to. Please note that papers submitted to ISGIDAR should not also be presented at CPDD. The amount of time available for each talk will depend on the number of papers submitted but will not be less than 20 minutes.

If you wish to advance register ($50 - does not include lunch) please send a check (payable to ISGIDAR) to Dr. Marilyn Carroll, Psychiatry Department, Box 392 UMHC, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. Receipts for meal costs (and registration) will be provided at the meeting.


From the President:
The lunch at the ISGIDAR meeting will remain $15. It will consist of cold hearty salad as the entrée: Chilled Chicken Nicoise, Mesculin (sounds suspicious) Salad Greens, Herbed Potatoes, French Beans, Calamata Olives, Pear Tomatoes, and Fresh California Fruit Tart. I hope you consider coming to the lunch – it’s always a nice informal gathering to talk with friends and colleagues you haven’t seen in a while about science and non-science stuff and it is a superb menu.

Our Invited Speaker this year is Dr. Pier Vincenzo Piazza from INSERM, at the University of Bordeaux, France. The tentative title of Dr. Piazza’s talk is "Is the experimental analysis of individual differences in drug self-administration relevant to drug abuse in humans?" He will give a 40-45 min presentation with 5-10 min allotted for questions/discussion.

The mini-symposium chaired by Richard Foltin should be excellent. A dozen scientists at different points in their career will talk briefly about "classic" articles which have either shaped their current research endeavors or which influenced them in some way to establish a career in the field (with an emphasis on drugs as reinforcers).

There is the possibility that we will start at the program at 8:30 am which means that registration would start at 7:45 am. This is not definite yet, and depends to a large extent on the number of paper submissions that are received for presentation. Traditionally in past programs we have had not less than 10 paper presentations and if we receive, and accept, 10 paper presentations, we may have to start earlier than 9:00, our somewhat traditional starting time. When I am aware of the final program including times and order of presentations (probably at least a week before the actual meeting), I will give final details of the program via either an e-mail to the Discussion Group or a posting on our website. Those final details will include registration times and the room number in which the meeting will be held.

This year’s business meeting is particularly important because we will be electing new officers. If you would like an item placed on the meeting agenda, please e-mail me with the item.

On the last page of the newsletter is the ballot for nominations for new members. Please send in your completed ballot to me by June 5, 2001 for those you approve of for membership in ISGIDAR. The ballot could be snail-mailed to me (Dept. of Anesthesia & Critical Care, MC4028, The University of Chicago, 5841 S. Maryland Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637), e-mailed (jzacny@airway2.uchicago.edu) or faxed (773 702-6179) to me. Results of the balloting will be announced at the business meeting. IF YOU LOSE THE BALLOT E-MAIL ME AND I WILL SEND YOU ANOTHER.

ISGIDAR Internet Discussion List (ISGIDAR-L@lists.vcu.edu)

Our ISGIDAR Discussion/News Group remains active. The Secretary of ISGIDAR will be polling all members of ISGIDAR to obtain an email addresses database, in anticipation of upcoming electronic versions of the Newsletter. If you were either a previous subscriber to this newsgroup, you are an ISGIDAR member, or you have attended a recent ISGIDAR meeting and are interested, simply send a message to listserv@lists.vcu.edu with the following one line in the body of the message: SUBSCRIBE ISGIDAR-L. The possibility that the Newsletter will go electronic will be brought up at the business meeting.

Recent Publications: ISGIDAR Member Bibliographies

• Abreu, M.E., Bigelow, G.E., Fleisher, L. & Walsh, S.L. (2001). Effect of intravenous injection speed on responses to cocaine and hydromorphone in humans. Psychopharamacology. 154, 76-84.
• Walsh, S.L., Haberny, K.A., & Bigelow, G.E. (2000). Modulation of intravenous cocaine effects by chronic oral cocaine in humans. Psychopharmacology, 150, 361-373.
• Strain, E.C., Stoller, K., Walsh, S.L. & Bigelow, G.E. (2000) The effects of buprenorphine versus buprenorphine/naloxone tablets in non-dependent opioid abusers. Psychopharmacology, 148, 374-383.

Reprint requests to:
Behavioral Biology Research Center
5510 Nathan Shock Drive
Johns Hopkins Bayview Campus
Baltimore, Maryland 21224-6823

William L. Woolverton, Ph.D.

• Anderson, K.G. and Woolverton, W.L. Concurrent variable-interval drug self-administration and the generalized matching law: A drug class comparison. Behav. Pharmacol. 11: 413-420, 2000.
• Wilcox, K.M., Rowlett, J.K., Paul, I.A., Ordway, G.A. and Woolverton, W.L.: On the relationship between the dopamine transporter and the reinforcing effects of local anesthetics in rhesus monkeys: Practical and theoretical concerns. Psychopharmacology 153: 139-147, 2000.
• Ranaldi, R., Anderson, K.G., Carroll, F.I. and Woolverton, W.L. Reinforcing and discriminative stimulus effects of RTI 111, a 3-phenyltropane analog, in rhesus monkeys: interaction with methamphetamine. Psychopharmacology 153: 103-110, 2000.
• Rowlett, J.K. and Woolverton, W.L.: Discriminative stimulus effects of panadiplon (U-78875), a partial agonist at the benzodiazepine site, in pentobarbital rhesus monkeys. Drug Alc. Dep. 61: 229-236, 2001.
• Gerak, L.R., France, C.P., Woolverton, W.L., Nader, M.A., Patrick, G.A., Harris, L.S., Winger, G. and Woods, J.H. Evaluation of the abuse and dependence liability of flunitrazepam. Drug Alc. Dep. 62: 2001, in press.
• Woolverton, W.L., Hecht, G.S., Agoston, G.E., Katz, J.L. and Newman, A.H.: Further studies of the reinforcing effects of benztropine analogs in rhesus monkeys. Psychopharmacology 154: 375-382, 2001.
• Ranaldi, R., Wang, Z. and Woolverton, W.L.: Reinforcing effects of D2 dopamine receptor agonists and partial agonists in rhesus monkeys. Drug Alc. Depend., in press.
• Anderson, K.G., Winger, G., Woods, J.H. and Woolverton, W.L.: Reinforcing and discriminative stimulus effects of ephedrine isomers in rhesus monkeys. Drug Alc. Depend., in press.
• Wilcox, K.M., Paul, I.A., Ordway, G.A. and Woolverton, W.L.: Role of the dopamine transporter and the sodium channel in the cocaine-like discriminative stimulus effects of local anesthetics in rats. Psychopharmacology, in press.

Reprint requests to:
Department of Psychiatry
Univ of Mississippi Medical Center
UMC Box 127
2500 N. State Street
Jackson, MS 39216-4505

Steven R. Goldberg, Ph,.D.

• Munzar, P. and Goldberg, S.R. Dopaminergic involvement in the discriminative-stimulus effects of methamphetamine in rats. Psychopharmacology, 148:209-216, 2000.
• Schindler, C.W., Thorndike, E.B., Ma, J. and Goldberg, S.R. Conditioned suppression with cocaine as the unconditioned stimulus. Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior 65:83-89, 2000.
• Carmona, G.N., Jufer, R.A., Goldberg, S.R., Gorelick, D.A., Greig, N.H., Yu, Q.-S., Cone, E.J. and Schindler, C.W. Butyrlcholinesterase accelerates cocaine metabolism: In vitro and in vivo effects in non-human primates and humans. Drug Metabolism and Disposition 28:367-371, 2000.
• Tanda, G. and Goldberg, S.R. Alteration of the behavioral effects of nicotine by chronic caffeine exposure. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior 66(1):47-64.2000.
• Baumann, M.H., Elmer, G.I., Goldberg, S.R. and Ambrosio, E. Differential neuroendocrine responsiveness to morphine in Lewis, Fischer 344, and ACI inbred rats. Brain Research 858:320-326, 2000.
• Heishman, S.J., Schuh, K.J., Schuster, C.R., Henningfield, J.E. and Goldberg, S.R. Reinforcing and subjective effects of morphine in human opioid abusers: Effect of dose and alternative reinforcer. Psychopharmacology (Berl) 148(3):272-280, 2000.
• Tanda, G., Munzar, P. and Goldberg, S.R. Self-administration behavior maintained by the psychoactive ingredient of marijuana in squirrel monkeys. Nature Neuroscience 3(11):1073-1074, 2000.
• Munzar, P., Kutkat, S.W., Miller, C.R. and Goldberg, S.R. Failure of baclofen to modulate discriminative-stimulus effects of cocaine or methamphetamine in rats. European Journal of Pharmacology 408:169-174, 2000.
• Gasior, M., Jaszyna, M., Peters, J. and Goldberg, S.R. Changes in the ambulatory activity and discriminative stimulus effects of psychostimulant drugs in rats chronically exposed to caffeine: Effect of caffeine dose. JPET 295:1101-1111, 2000.
• Sudakov, S.K., Medvedeva, O.F., Rusakova, I.V., Terebilina, N.N. and Goldberg, S.R. Differences in genetic predisposition to high anxiety in two inbred rat strains: Role of substance P, diazepam binding inhibitor fragment and neuropeptide Y. Psychopharmacology 2000.
• Miller, D.K., Crooks, P.A., Teng, L., Witkin, J.M., Munzar, P., Goldberg, S.R., Acri, J.B. and Dwoskin, L.P. Lobeline inhibits the neurochemical and behavioral effects of amphetamine. JPET 296:1023-1034, 2001.

Reprint requests to:
Preclinical Pharmacology Section
IRP/NIDA
P.O. Box 5180
Baltimore, MD, USA

Richard A. Meisch, M.D., Ph.D.

• Meisch, R.A. Oral drug self-administration: An overview of laboratory animal studies. Alcohol, in press.
• Wang, N.S., Brown, V.L., Grabowski, J., & Meisch, R.A. Reinforcement by orally delivered methadone, cocaine, and methadone-cocaine combinations in rhesus monkeys: are the combinations better reinforcers? Psychopharmacology, in press.

Reprint requests to:
Psychiary and Behavioral Sciences
Univeristy of Texas Houston ;
1300 Moursund Blvd.
Houston;TX ;77030-3497

POSITIONS AVAILABLE- ACADEMIC/SCIENTIST

Assistant Professor/Research Scientist position at Columbia University/NY State Psychiatric Institute is available to do laboratory behavioral and clinical pharmacology research with human participants in the Division on Substance Abuse. Applicants must have PH.D. or M.D. with training appropriate to a research career in this area. Start date anytime after 1 January, with some flexibility.

Send CV and names of three references to:

Marian W. Fischman, Ph.D.
Professor of Behavioral Biology
Department of Psychiatry
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University and
New York State Psychiatric Institute
1051 Riverside Drive, Unit 120
New York, NY 10032

Assistant/Associate Professor in Pharmacology in the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, a 12-month, tenure-track faculty position. The Health Sciences Center in Shreveport is the largest medical facility in the Tri-State area and places a high priority on professional training, with a tradition of excellence in medical and graduate student education, research and service. The Department is recruiting qualified faculty members with expertise in any of the following areas: cell/molecular pharmacology or toxicology, neuropharmacology, neurotoxicology, cell/molecular neurobiology, or cell/molecular biology of signal transduction. The Department also maintains a NIH-funded Training Program for graduate and post graduate training in alcohol and drug abuse research. The successful candidate must have a Ph.D. or equivalent degree in pharmacology or related discipline with demonstrated research abilities and/or externally funded research in one or more of the above areas. As a faculty member, he/she will be involved in graduate and medical student teaching and will be expected to develop an independent and collaborative research program. Excellent facilities exist within the LSU Hospital and Medical School and the adjacent Biomedical Research Institute. The position is available immediately. Louisiana State University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Candidates should submit by mail a letter of application, curriculum vitae, a detailed description of research abilities and plans, and three letters of references to:

LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, LA: Predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships supported by an NIH Training Program funded through the National Institute on Drug Abuse are currently available for outstanding candidates. The Ph.D. degree for predoctoral candidates will be offered through the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics, and candidates must meet all requirements for admission into the Department. Postdoctoral candidates should have a Ph.D. in Pharmacology, Neuroscience, Psychology or a related discipline with relevant laboratory experience. The research areas of Program Faculty are briefly described below, and further details can be found at http://gradsch.shreveport.lsumc.edu/Gradsch/Pharm/Faculty.html.

The University of Mississippi Medical Center, Jackson, MS: Post-Doctoral Research Associate Position in Behavioral Pharmacology. Applications are invited for a post-doctoral research associate position in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the University of Mississippi Medical Center to conduct research in the behavioral pharmacology of drugs of abuse. Candidates should have a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology, Pharmacology or Neuroscience and have some expertise in behavioral pharmacology. The successful candidate will be expected to supervise technicians, prepare reports and manuscripts for publication and present research results at national meetings. Salary will be competitive and commensurate with experience. Intererested applicants should send curriculum vitae, a statement or current and future research goals and names of three references to: William L. Woolverton, Ph.D., Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, The University of Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 N. State Street, Jackson, MS, 39216.

Johns Hopkins Bayview Campus; Baltimore, MD: Postdoctoral research fellowships in stimulating, productive program with excellent resources at the substance abuse research at Johns Hopkins. Prepare as independent investigator in, Human Laboratory -- behavioral & clinical pharmacology of abused drugs (abuse liability, self-administration, cognitive function, neuroimaging); anti-drug-abuse medications development. Opioids, cocaine, anxiolytics, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, Clinical Trials – testing medications, verbal & behavioral therapies (esp. incentive/motivation-based), and combinations; psychiatric comorbidity research; addiction & pregnancy/women. Opioid, cocaine, tobacco, mixed/other dependencies.
Eligibility: citizen, permanent resident. A broad range of backgrounds are appropriate – from clinical/ counseling to experimental/neuroscience. Start Date: Flexible, some now. NIH stipend levels: $27-42K+.
Contact Sharon Walsh, George Bigelow, Roland Griffiths, or Maxine Stitzer; BPRU, Behavioral Biology Research Center;. 5510 Nathan Shock Drive; Johns Hopkins Bayview Campus; Baltimore, Maryland 21224-6823. (410) 550-1060; swalsh@jhmi.edu. http://bpru.med.jhu.edu

University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, TX: The Smoking Cessation Laboratory is searching for individuals interested in working as post-doctoral fellows. The Smoking Cessation Laboratory was developed to study contingency management treatments of substance abuse using smoking as a model addictive behavior. Current investigations are supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Drug Addiction. In these investigations, the Laboratory is examining in a treatment seeking population the shaping of smoking cessation through the use of percentile schedules. The Laboratory, also, plans to undertake studies examining the shaping of smoking cessation in smokers not seeking to quit smoking, and human laboratory studies examining more general questions of shaping human behavior using percentile schedules.The position is available immediately, and applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Candidates should plan on completing their doctoral work before beginning their work in San Antonio. Candidates having a familiarity with the experimental analysis of behavior are preferred. Candidates should send me their curriculum vitae to the address below along with any pertinent publications and the names, addresses and phone numbers of several references. Reply to: RJ Lamb, UTHSCSA, Department of Psychiatry, Mail Code 7792, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, TX 78229

NIDA's Intramural Research Program, Baltimore, MD: Postdoctoral research positions are available in the Preclinical Pharmacology Section of NIDA's Intramural Research Program for graduate or medical students completing their degree requirements this year. Additional years of academic postdoctoral experience would be useful. Research involves analyzing behavioral and neuropharmacological mechanisms underlying the reinforcing, discriminative and depressant actions of drugs of abuse in in-vivo animal models. The recent focus of research has been on the actions of cannabinoids, nicotine, and methamphetamine. Procedures currently utilized include i.v. drug self-administration, drug discrimination and in vivo microdialysis. A strong background in pharmacology and/or operant behavior and a documented proficiency in publishing in English-language journals would be preferred. For an expanding emphasis in molecular-biochemical mechanisms we would also be interested in canditates with expertise in HPLC, in situ hybridization and/or radioligand-binding techniques. Salary would range from $30,800 to $46,700 plus medical insurance, depending on research background and years of relevant experience. For information please contact Dr. Steven R. Goldberg, Preclinical Pharmacology, NIDA, P.O. Box 5180, Baltimore, MD, USA. It would be best to initially communicate via E-mail to sgoldber@intra.nida.nih.gov or via fax to 410-550-1563 or 1648.

Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC: A postdoctoral position is available for an interested and qualified individual to join a productive research environment investigating the neuropharmacology of cocaine abuse in nonhuman primate models. Models utilized include intravenous drug self-administration and drug discrimination, as well as the use of the noninvasive imaging procedure positron emission tomography (PET). Projects include the investigation of social stress on cocaine self-administration in group-housed macaques, the evaluation of high-affinity dopamine and serotonin transport blockers as potential pharmacotherapies for cocaine abuse, the study of dopamine D2-like antagonists on cocaine’s reinforcing and discriminative stimulus effects and the long-term consequences of cocaine self-administration on dopamine receptor function as determined by PET. Applicants should send a curriculum vitae, summary of research interests and career goals and names of three references to: Michael A. Nader, Ph.D., Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Medical Center Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1083; FAX: 336-716-8501; email: mnader@wfubmc.edu.