Mark Gerstein awarded $15 million grant from NIDA

Mark Gerstein
September 2, 2020

Congratulations to Dr. Mark Gerstein (MB&B) for being awarded a $15 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). This award was given to Dr. Gerstein along with Dr. Serena Spudich, MD, MA (Neurology) and Dr. Yuval Kluger (Pathology) for their multidisciplinary proposal to establish a data center for molecular data sets generated by Single-Cell Opioid Responses in the context of HIV and other NIDA-funded HIV and substance use disorder projects.

Opioid use disorder (OUD) and HIV infection can both individually and concertedly affect cognition and behavior, but the brain cells and circuitry associated with these conditions are poorly understood. HIV can also persist in the brain long term, but the location and potential interactions with opioids are unknown. This proposed work aims to explore these unknowns to better understand the effects of OUD and HIV on the brain.

By Jake Thrasher