The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has awarded WSU a five-year, $11 million grant to establish a network of community treatment groups and state universities to study the practical application of research on drug addiction treatment.

NIDA established similar programs, or Clinical Trials Networks (CTN), in six other U.S. regions last year. This grant establishes the Great Lakes Regional Node (GLRN), which will involve clinical researchers at Wayne State University School of Medicine, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

"In all areas of medicine, there is a significant delay in translating research findings into new methods of treatment," said Charles Schuster, PhD, WSU professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences who is the principal investigator on the grant. “With this program, we will be able to help facilitate the transfer of new proven therapeutic interventions into practice.”

At the same time, community treatment program practitioners will provide researchers with valuable information on the practical, day-to-day problems faced in treating drug abuse, Dr. Schuster said. This will serve to guide the research agenda of the CTN to insure its relevance to community substance abuse treatment programs.

During the first year, an infrastructure will be established to conduct clinical research in six community treatment programs. Four will be in the metro-Detroit area, including the Eleanor Hutzel Recovery Center, Michigan Counseling Services, Self Help Addiction Rehabilitation (SHAR), Inc., and the Star Center. The two facilities outside the metro-Detroit area are the Chelsea Arbor Treatment Center, in Ann Arbor, and Gateway Services, in Kalamazoo. Eventually, the network will involve a total of 10 sites in Michigan.

Specifically, the GLRN will promote use of the most cutting-edge treatments available, including the drug buprenorphine. Used to treat heroin addiction, buprenorphine will be on the market within three months and community treatment programs need to learn how to use this medication most effectively. Community groups also will be trained in new behavioral interventions, such as “motivational enhancement therapy,” which clinical trials have shown helps patients complete rehabilitation programs.

“In clinical trials, we can prove something called 'efficacy,'” Dr. Schuster said, “but we can't prove whether it will be useful in the real world. That's what we want to do with this network.”