Rhode Island Hospital received a $12 million federal grant on September 8th to continue The Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) on Opioids and Overdose. The Center, which was established in 2018 with $11.8 million funding to address the nation’s opioid crisis, has received its second five-year grant award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS).
Led by principal investigator Josiah Rich, M.D., M.P.H. and Traci Green, Ph.D., M.Sc., the Rhode Island Hospital COBRE on Opioids and Overdose will continue to work in partnership with Brown University and The Miriam Hospital to grow and sustain a critical mass of investigators specializing in opioid use disorder.
Aside from COVID, the overdose crisis is the worst public health crisis in over 100 years, killing over 100,000 Americans a year. Rhode Island Hospital’s COBRE on Opioids and Overdose was the first NIGMS funded research center in the country with this focus.
“Far too many families in Rhode Island from all walks of life have been torn apart by the opioid epidemic,” said U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who authored the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which is the law guiding the federal response to the opioid crisis. “Rhode Island Hospital’s Center of Biomedical Research Excellence is leading the nation in research to end the overdose crisis, and this federal funding will allow that life-saving work to continue.”
“The purpose of the Center is to bring together leaders across institutions to support the research we need to address the rapidly evolving opioid and overdose crisis with science, community, compassion, and high impact,” said Josiah Rich, MD director of The COBRE on Opioids and Overdose. “We are grateful to the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences for the support for this project and recognizing its importance in our communities.”
“We’ve spent the first five years of the COBRE seeding a Center with supports that can help the community and our junior scientists address the evolving crisis. In its next five-year phase, we aim to tighten those ties to science and community and meet the entrenched and new challenges of the opioid crisis like the need for widely available, effective treatment, housing instability, the rise in stimulant use, and xylazine.” said Traci Green, co-director of The COBRE on Opioids and Overdose.
To learn more about the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) on Opioids and Overdose, visit their website: https://opioidcobre.org/.