MAY/JUNE 2009
Volume 15- No. 2
SRNT Newsletter
MAY/JUNE, Volume 15, Number 2
2010 SRNT Award Winners
John Slade Award
Harry Lando received his Ph. D. in Psychology from Stanford University in 1973. He is currently a Distinguished International Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Lando has striven tirelessly to bring together tobacco control researchers, policy makers and practitioners across the globe. For this reason, he is the 2010 recipient of the John Slade Award.
During his term as Present of SRNT, Dr. Lando worked to expand SRNT’s global reach. He led in the organization of three global pre-conferences in conjunction with SRNT annual meetings. These pre-conferences have had a major impact on SRNT’s reach. He is currently the chair of the Global Network Committee. Through this Committee, he has worked to expand SRNT’s global presence, especially in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC). As a result of this Committee’s work, successful regional SRNT conferences have been held in Brazil and Thailand. Dr. Lando had a major influence at the National Institutes for Health Fogarty Center in the development of collaborations between US researchers and those in LMIC. Recently, he led the successful effort to bring the 14th World conference on Tobacco OR Health to Mumbia, India, and served as a conference Vice President, playing a major role in fund raising This March, he assumed the role of co-chair of the International Liaison Group for Tobacco OR health. Dr. Lando has worked closely in with others in developing the Human Rights and Tobacco Control Network, chairing and collaborating in international conferences for this group. Dr. Lando is widely recognized for his positive and productive mentoring of dozens of colleagues around the world.
Fernö Clinical Research Award
Saul Shiffman, Ph. D. received his Ph. D. in 1981 from the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currently Research Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Psychiatry and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Pittsburg. He is also involved in firms developing products for smoking cessation, and serves as Senior Scientific Advisor for Pinney Associates. Dr. Shiffman has had an in clinical research, but he has focused on the elucidation of the processes of cessation, relapse, addiction, and change in tobacco dependence.
Dr. Shiffman’s initial work addressed the topic of relapse by conventional retrospective interviews. Soon, however he introduce Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) as a way to circumvent problems associated with recall. His EMA work has revealed the flaws with retrospective methods, and has definitively elucidated the processes that lead from lapse to a relapse.
Dr. Shiffman is also one of the few scientists to study “chippers”—people who maintain a low and steady rate of smoking over time, but who fail to reach addictive levels of smoking. This line of research has lead to discussions about the nature of nicotine and its addictive properties.
Recently, he has studied pharmacological treatment, both working on developing new treatments and understanding treatment processes. His work has included sophisticated mediational and process analyses.
In addition, Dr. Shiffman has mentored trainees who have gone on to productive research careers, and has been most generous and collegial in his interactions with the research community, especially via the SRNT listserv.
The Fernö Clinical Research Award honors the scientist who has made ground-breaking advances in clinical research in one of the following three areas: (1) the pharmacological and behavioral actions of nicotine; (2) increasing understanding on why individuals use tobacco; or (3) interventions to prevent tobacco use, to encourage or assist tobacco users to stop, and/or to reduce the adverse effects of tobacco use. The winner of this award receives a monetary prize, a plaque, and an expense-paid trip to the SRNT Annual Meeting to present a plenary lecture on the awardee’s research. The Fernö Award is presented every three years. Past recipients of the Fernö award have included: Sharon Hall, Ovide Pomerleau, Ed Lichtenstein, Murry Jarvik, Michael Russell, Neal Benowitz, John Hughes, and Dorothy Hatsukami.
Jarvik-Russell Young Investigator Award
Paul Kenny received his Ph. D. in 2000 from King’s College in London, UK. He is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida. Dr. Kenny has already made important contributions to the understanding of the effects of nicotine in the brain and its impact on behavior. For this reason, and for his potential contributions as a scientist, Dr. Kenny is the 2010 recipient of the Jarvik-Russell Young Investigator Award.
During his graduate work, Dr. Kenny published extensively on the regulation of
anxiety by nicotine in the rat, and identified critical roles for serotonin
transmission in these actions. During his postdoctoral work, he investigated
the role of glutamate-mediated transmission in the reinforcing effects of self-administered
nicotine and its role in affect during nicotine withdrawal.
As a Scripps faculty member, Dr. Kenny recently published a study demonstrating that orexin/hypocretin containing neurons innervate the insular region of the cortex, that orexin-1 receptors are located on the insular cells, and that blockade of orexin transmission in the insular area of the cortex decreases the motivational effects of nicotine.
The Jarvik-Russell Young Investigator Award recognizes the scientist who has made outstanding contributions to the field of nicotine and tobacco research early on in their career. The nominees must be either be 40 years old or younger or seven years after their graduate degree. Nominees for this award should also be SRNT members. The recipient of this award receives a monetary prize, a plaque, and an expense-paid trip to the SRNT Annual Meeting to receive the award and present a lecture on their research. Recent recipients of this award: Jonathan Winickoff, Jodi Prochaska, Bernard LeFoll, Darlene Brunzell, Marcus Munafo, Eric Donny, Kimber Richter, and Christi Ann Patten.