Six UAMS faculty have received pilot awards in opioid addiction and pain research. The one-year awards of up to $25,000 each were made possible through the UAMS Office of Vice Chancellor for Research and are being administered by the UAMS Translational Research Institute. The pilot projects will provide important preliminary data for these research teams to submit future federal grants to expand opioid addiction and pain research at UAMS.

Below are the awardees, their research titles and their video summaries of their projects:

Johnathan Goree, M.D., Video-based, Patient-Focused Opioid Education in the Perioperative Period: A Feasibility Study; https://youtu.be/QB9f_E9AOG0

Corey Hayes, Pharm.D., MPH, Linking the Arkansas Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Data with the Arkansas All-Payer Claims Database; https://youtu.be/ScgtR2OLZWE

Linda Larson-Prior, Ph.D., Impact of Buprenorphine-Assisted Treatment on Sleep, Mood and Cognition among Opioid Use Disorder Patients; https://youtu.be/sRWujnCwnOQ

 Issam Makhoul, M.D., The Development and Implementation of a Standardized Pain Management Protocol for Adult Sickle Cell Patients; https://youtu.be/rpkW7TqqUVU

Clare Nesmith, M.D., Quantitation of Opioids in Neonates with Neonatal Opioid Withdrawal; https://youtu.be/WA8nL6fucoM

Alison Oliveto, Ph.D., Gamified Intervention to Prevent Adolescent Opioid Misuse; https://youtu.be/uCdG2L3fNN8

The awardees were selected from a diverse and competitive pool of applicants. Seventeen Letters of Intent were submitted, and 12 were invited to submit a full application. Ten full applications were reviewed and scored by a study section of 29 faculty and community reviewers.

The project start date is Jan. 1, 2019.