NIDA Clinical Trials Network, Mid Atlantic Node
Co-Principal Investigator: Robert Schwartz, M.D.
Co-Investigator: Jerome H. Jaffe M.D.
Co-Investigator: Shannon Gwin Mitchell Ph.D.
Co-Investigator: Frank Vocci Ph.D.
Funded By: National Institute on Drug Abuse
Grant #: U10 DA13034
Total Project Period: 9/15 – 8/20
The NIDA Clinical Trials Network (CTN) was founded in 1999 with six participating groups; it now has 16 participating groups, called Nodes, distributed throughout the US. Each node is comprised of a consortium of university-based researchers and directors of community-based drug abuse treatment clinics. The Mid Atlantic Node is led by Dr. Maxine Stitzer at the Johns Hopkins University and Dr. Robert Schwartz at Friends Research Institute and includes collaborations with Virginia Commonwealth University and Friends Research Institute, as well as a group of community treatment providers in Baltimore, Virginia and Washington, DC. This configuration is designed to promote and advance the three missions of the CTN: 1) to promote bi-directional communication between researchers and community treatment providers; 2) to conduct research on evidence-based interventions at community-based clinical sites to identify interventions with effectiveness in real world settings; and, 3) to promote dissemination and adoption of new evidence-based practices in order ultimately to improve treatment services nationwide. The CTN has now successfully conducted over 20 studies. Some have examined new medications such as buprenorphine for the treatment of opioid dependence; others have examined behavior therapies including motivational interviewing, contingency management and family-based therapy for adolescents. The results of completed studies can be found at: http://ctndisseminationlibrary.org. Further, to address the dissemination agenda, CTN and the national network of ATTC’s jointly sponsor a Blending Initiative to develop dissemination training packages for use of buprenorphine, motivational interviewing and contingency management (also called Motivational Incentives). These packages can be found on the ATTC website.