Providence-based Rhode Island Hospital received a $11.8 million federal grant to create a opioid and overdose research center to better understand addiction and develop possible treatment methods, the hospital announced Aug. 23.
The Center of Biomedical Research Excellence on Opioids and Overdose will be funded via a five-year grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
Josiah Rich, MD, professor of medicine and epidemiology at Providence, R.I.-based Brown University and Traci Green, PhD, adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine and epidemiology at Providence, R.I.-based Brown University, will co-lead the center. Drs. Rich and Green have a combined 40 years of experience researching opioid use disorder.
"There is a tremendous need for greater scientific understanding of the mechanisms underpinning opioid use disorder and a need for more effective interventions to treat and prevent opioid misuse and overdose," Dr. Rich said in a press release. "This center will bring together experts from institutions across Rhode Island to support excellence in the research needed to combat the opioid epidemic hampering and taking the lives of our friends and neighbors."