National Institute on Drug Abuse
Director's Report to the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse
September, 1998
Staff Highlights
Honors and Awards
1998 Blue Cross/Blue Shield Award
Charles Sharp, DBR
Ann Montgomery, MDD
1998 Quality of Worklife Award
Carol Cushing
1998 Secretary's Award for Distinguished Service
Elizabeth Robertson, DEPR (as a Member of the Secretary's Initiative on Youth Substance Abuse Prevention)
Beverly Jackson, OSPC (as a Member of the Secretary's Initiative on Youth Substance Abuse Prevention)
William Bukoski, DEPR (as a Member of the Secretary's Initiative on Youth Substance Abuse Prevention)
1998 NIH Director's Award
Group Award
David Gorelick, IRP (part of the NIH Institutional Review Boards Group)
Individual Awards
Henry Francis, CAMCODA
Susan Herbert, MDD
Mary Affeldt, IRP
1998 Commissioned Corp Awards
Peter Delaney, DCSR - Commendation Medal
Kesinee Nimit, OEPR - Commendation Medal
Steven Sparenborg, MDD - Commendation Medal
Betty Tai, MDD - Commendation Medal
Anti-Cocaine Addiction Medication Development Group - Unit Commendation
NIDA IRP Pharmacy - Unit Commendation
CDR Janice M. Carico, IRP - Outstanding Service Medal
Other Awards
Lee Cummings, J.D., of the Medications Development Division, was elected as chairman of the NIH-wide Technology Development Coordinators, effective September 1998.
Drs. Newman, Allen, Kline, Izenwasser and Katz, were awarded a U.S. Patent #8,667,024, on April 15, 1998 entitled 3a*-Diphenylmethoxytropane Analogs as Cocaine Therapeutics.
Dr. Amy Newman has received an HHS Special Service Award in April 1998 for serving as an invited guest editor for a special issue of Medicinal Chemistry Research, focused on recent advances in medicinal chemistry at the dopamine transporter.
On July 12, 1998, Dr. Teruo Hayashi, a visiting fellow working with Dr. Tsung-Ping Su of the IRP, was honored as one of the ten Rafaelsen Fellows selected from young scientists in the opening ceremony of the XXIst Congress of the Collegium Internationale NeuroPsychopharmacologicum (CINP) which was held from July 12 to 16, 1998 at Glasgow, Scotland. Dr. Hayashi was awarded with a two thousand dollars travel scholarship to attend the XXIst CINP meeting. Dr. Hayashi was honored for his ongoing study with Dr.Tsung-Ping Su on the role of sigma receptors in the modulation of calcium signaling in cells.
Dr. Jonathan Links, Technical Director of NIDA's Brain Imaging Center, has been elected President of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and has been promoted to Professor with tenure, Environmental Health Sciences (SPH), School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University.
Staff Changes
Kathleen Etz, Ph.D. joined the Prevention Research Branch, DEPR, as a Program Official in August 1998. She comes to NIDA from a Post Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Kentucky Center for Drug Abuse Prevention. She received her doctorate from the Human Development and Family Studies program at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where she participated in the Carolina Consortium on Human Development.
Steven Grant, Ph.D. has recently joined the Etiology and Clinical Neurobiology Branch, Division of Clinical and Services Research. Before coming to NIDA's extramural program, Dr. Grant spent 5 years at NIDA's Intramural Research Program in Baltimore studying the clinical neurobiology of drug addiction. He will direct the ECNB's program in cognitive neuroscience.
Richard Kline, Ph.D. was selected for the position of Chemist in the Chemistry and Pharmaceutics Branch, MDD, effective May 24, 1998. Dr. Kline is a medicinal chemist, with a background in the medicinal chemistry of novel cocaine addiction therapeutics. Prior to employment with MDD, Dr. Kline worked with Information Management Consultants developing a 3D chemical structural information database system. Dr. Kline was a NIDA Research Fellow at the Intramural Research Program, and the recipient of a National Research Council Fellowship in 1994.
Jeffrey Merrill, M.P.H. is serving on a detail to DEPR under an Intergovernmental Personnel Assignment (IPA) from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School effective July 6, 1998. At NIDA, Mr. Merrill has assumed the duties of a senior level Public Health Advisor and Special Assistant to the Director, DEPR, and will provide expertise and guidance to DEPR and its Prevention Research Branch in the area of prevention health services research and managed care.
Moo Kwang Park, Ph.D. was selected for the position of Chemist in the Chemistry and Pharmaceutics Branch, MDD, effective June 18, 1998. Dr. Park is a pharmaceutical scientist with special expertise in research and development of pharmaceutical dosage forms and bioequivalance studies. Dr. Park was most recently employed by the FDA Division of Bioequivalance, and formerly held positions with Formulation Development Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Ayerst Laboratories.
Mr. Keith Van Wagner, Presidential Management Intern, began his rotation in the Public Information Branch, Office of Science Policy and Communications, in July. Mr. Van Wagner earned his Masters of Public Administration from North Carolina State University and is nearing the end of his first year in the 2-year program.
Marina Volkov, Ph.D. joined NIDA's Office of Extramural Program Review as a Scientific Review Administrator in the Clinical, Epidemiological, and Applied Sciences Review Branch in early September 1998. Dr. Volkov comes to NIDA from the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR). Activities in which she was involved while at OBSSR included developing a standard NIH definition of these sciences, creating trans-institute and trans-agency funding initiatives, and improving communications among the behavioral and social science communities, as well as information exchange between the research community and biomedical scientists, health care providers, the media, the public and policy makers.
Ms. Kathleen Wilson has moved from NIDA's Intramural Research Program to work in the Public Information Branch, Office of Science Policy and Communications, as a communications assistant. Ms. Wilson participates in the NIH Temporary Employment Program and is a telecommunications major at Morgan State University.
Henry Francis, M.D. was reassigned to the position of Director for the Center on AIDS and Other Medical Consequences of Drug Abuse effective June 7, 1998.
Elizabeth Robertson, Ph.D. was selected to be Chief, Prevention Research Branch, DEPR. Dr. Robertson holds a Ph.D. in human development and family studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She first joined NIDA staff as a Program Official in the Prevention Research Branch in November, 1995.
Jaylan Turkkan, Ph.D. was selected as Chief of the Behavioral Sciences Research Branch, Division of Basic Research, in July 1998.
Ms. Mona Brown, Public Information Specialist with NIDA's Public Information Branch, OSPC, and NIDA's Press Officer for 10 years, left the Institute to assume a position in the Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA), Office of Communications.
Ms. Andrea Kopstein of the Epidemiology Research Branch, DEPR, is leaving NIDA to join the Division of Population Surveys in the Office of Applied Studies at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Ms. Kopstein, who came to NIDA in 1988, will work on the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA).
Dr. Alan Trachtenberg, Medical Officer in the Office of Science Policy and Communications left NIDA to assume a position at SAMHSA.
Edward J. Cone, Ph.D. retired from government service on August 31, 1998 after more than 26 years of service. Dr. Cone joined NIDA's Intramural Research Program (Addiction Research Center) in Lexington, KY on July 1, 1972 where he served as Chief of the Chemistry and Drug Metabolism Section until 1998. Dr. Cone was a Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Public Health Service and had the rank of Permanent Director Grade (CO-06). Dr. Cone's research on the kinetics and dynamics of smoked drugs, effects of environmental exposure to drugs of abuse, and the use of alternative specimens like saliva, sweat and hair for drug testing has been recognized world-wide and has resulted in the publication of numerous chapters and over 200 scientific articles on the analysis of drugs in biological media. Dr. Cone was cited by Science Watch, a journal that tracks trends and performance in basic research, as being the most highly cited author in Forensic Science over the period of 1981-1993. Presently, Dr. Cone is serving as a consultant to private industry, government and the military on matters relating to drug testing and drug delivery systems. In addition, he holds appointments as Adjunct Professor in the Toxicology Program, University of Maryland at Baltimore and as Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Zili Sloboda, Sc.D., Director of NIDA's Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research will be leaving October 1, 1998. Dr. Sloboda was responsible for uncounted major innovations and successes of the prevention, epidemiology, etiology and AIDS related programs of the Division, the Institute, and the field. At NIDA, she previously served as the Associate Director for Planning and Service Coordination of the Division of Clinical Research, as Chief of the Prevention Research Branch, and as a Research Epidemiologist emphasizing the natural history of HIV infection among drug abusers. Dr. Sloboda was one of the founders of the Society for Prevention Research and the professional journal, Prevention Science. She is the author of numerous scientific articles and chapters and her early work on the validity of self-report of drug abusers is still often cited--more than twenty years after its publication. Trained first as a medical sociologist at New York University and later as an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, Dr. Sloboda came to the federal government in 1987 as an expert and experienced researcher in both epidemiology and prevention research. She relocates to Ohio leaving an unmatched legacy of professional accomplishment in the research and public health fields; she takes with her the highest personal regard, respect and appreciation of her colleagues and her many friends. Dr. Sloboda will pursue her research interests in the area of drug abuse services research.
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