At an AAMC-sponsored briefing on Capitol Hill last week, the director of the
National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Drug Abuse told congressional staff how federally funded researchers at medical schools and teaching hospitals have made tremendous progress in understanding and treating the disease of addiction. Speaking at the AAMC's sixth "Fulfilling the Promise" briefing, NIDA Director Nora Volkow, M.D., outlined substance abuse and addiction as a developmental disease of the brain. She was joined by Charles O'Brien, M.D., Ph.D., professor and vice-chair of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania/VA Medical Center, who explained how the discovery of endogenous opioid receptors and compounds and the search for new pain medications led to the discovery of new treatments for drug and alcohol addictions. A Web cast of the briefing is available online. For more information, please visit http://www.aamc.org/ftp.