Ellen Unterwald, director of Temple University's Center for Substance Abuse Research, has been awarded a five-year renewal of her R01 NIH grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to investigate “Regulation of Delta Opioid Receptor Function by Cocaine” from the National Institute on Drug Abuse ($1,088,000 direct; $1,585,000 total). Unterwald is investigating a potential molecular mechanism involved in cocaine withdrawal that could be targeted by therapeutics to reduce relapse to cocaine abuse.

An article from the laboratory of Ronald Tuma titled “Cannabinoid CB2 receptor activation decreases cerebral infarction in a mouse focal ischemia/ reperfusion model,” published with his collaborators, M. Zhang, M.W. Adler, R.K. Razdan, and J.I. Jallo, in the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism (JCBFM) 2007. 27:1387-97, was one of the most highly cited articles in that journal in the last five years, receiving 47 citations as of June 2012.

Mary Abood was awarded a $1,502,600 (direct costs) five-year renewal of her R01 NIH grant to investigate “Molecular Characterization of GPR35 and GPR55, Putative Cannabinoid Receptors,” from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Abood is screening potential ligands for these receptors, which have been implicated in mediating inflammatory pain, cancer and metabolic disease.