Dr. Susan Stine of the Wayne State University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences was awarded a $30,000 research grant by the Mental Illness Research Association (MIRA).

The grant will fund the HPA Axis Alteration in Opioid Dependence: Methadone Maintenance versus Abstinence project -- a study of 10 methadone maintained subjects, 10 drug abstinent heroin dependent subjects and 10 healthy subjects. The purpose of the study is to help researchers understand why long-term abstinence from opioid drugs without the use of drug treatment is not generally successful.

MIRA is an organization that advances medical treatment for mental illness through private sector fundraising and by encouraging researchers through recognition and support. MIRA also works to erase the stigma of mental illnesses by fostering an awareness of their physical basis.

Dr. Stine is the director of Psychiatric Services for the University Psychiatric Centers Jefferson Research Clinic and the Addiction Psychiatry Residency Training Program.

Dr. Stine will be honored, along with the other two 2001 MIRA grant research recipients, at a dinner March 9 in Troy.