Feb. 14 Seminar: Transdisciplinary Research in Addiction Science; University-Wide Doc Student Training Program Launches.

This seminar — open to BU faculty, students, and staff — will focus on strategies for studying addictions and other complex diseases that integrate population, computational and basic science approaches.

Faculty presenters will unveil a new campuswide, cross-disciplinary training program for BU doctoral students studying addiction science.

Transdisciplinary Research in Addiction Science

Thursday, February 14, 2013
3:30 to 5:00 pm (reception following)
Keefer Auditorium, BU School of Medicine

Overview

Although much has been learned about the behaviors and biochemical imbalances associated with addictions, research leading to effective treatments has been slow. Addiction researchers using clinical and epidemiological approaches usually do not collaborate with those conducting basic research in cells and animal models because they do not share the same language, skill sets or perspective. By comparison, there are areas in which a new generation of bilingual scientists has emerged, such as breast cancer and cardiovascular disease, and not surprisingly these are the areas where the most dramatic clinical progress has been made.

Program

Transdisciplinary Research Paradigms in Neurodegenerative Disease
With a Focus on Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease

Richard Myers, Ph.D.
Director, Neurogenetics Laboratory
Boston University School of Medicine

The Neurogenetics Laboratory is engaged in the identification and understanding of genetic factors that influence diseases and conditions of mid- and late life. The primary investigations targets are Huntington’s disease (HD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and obesity, although the laboratory also studies pulmonary function, cardiovascular disease, and osteoporosis. More info

BU’s New Transformative Training Program in Addiction Science (TTPAS)

Forum and Panel Discussion

The new TTPAS program prepares doctoral students from many BU schools and colleges to apply diverse approaches to addiction research using tools from bench science, medicine. population studies, statistics and computational biology. TTPAS directors and faculty will introduce this exciting new program and discuss its potential to advance a behavioral and biochemical focus in addictions research and practice.

Panelists:

Lindsay Farrer, Ph.D. (forum presenter and panel chair)
TTPAS Co-director
Chief, Biomedical Genetics; Professor, Departments of Medicine, Neurology, Ophthalmology, and Genetics and Genomics, Boston University School of Medicine; and Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health.

Tim Heeren, Ph.D.
TTPAS Co-director
Professor, Department of Biostatistics
BU School of Public Health

David Rosenbloom, Ph.D.
TTPAS Faculty
Professor and Interim Chair
Department of Health Policy and Management
BU School of Public Health