Leadership in the Laboratory: Jeffery Weiner, Ph.D.

ABMRF Medical Advisory Council Grantee, 2000-02

Much more than a scientific office, a laboratory is a space for innovative collaboration and detailed research procedures, requiring equipment, staff, and skilled leadership. Establishing an alcohol research lab is a costly endeavor. It is particularly so for emerging investigators who have never received independent funding and thus lack substantiated data to support a promising idea. So for newer investigators, earning an ABMRF grant provides vital initial support.

Dr. Jeffrey L. Weiner, professor of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (WFUBMC), attributes the vibrant success of his alcohol research lab to the base provided early in his career by his 2000 ABMRF grant, "Ethanol inhibition of presynaptic kainate receptors.” This grant helped to launch the innovative work of his lab, where he uniquely identified how alcohol alters excitatory and inhibitory communication between brain cells. Not long after reporting findings of his grant, Dr. Weiner earned the Research Society on Alcoholism’s (RSA) Young Investigator Award, and several large NIH applications incorporating his ABMRF seed data were approved for funding, all confirming his lab’s reputation in the alcohol research community.

Pioneering the study of the fundamental mechanisms through which alcohol enhances GABAergic inhibitory synaptic transmission, his lab established that in many brain regions, alcohol enhances inhibitory synaptic transmission by increasing GABA release rather than by direct interaction with GABA receptors. He has identified new presynaptic targets that may prove promising in developing improved therapies for alcohol addiction. read more...

Pathway to Success: Mark Fillmore, Ph.D.

ABMRF Behavioral and Social Advisory Council Grantee, 1997-99

Earning a promotion to full professor at the University of Kentucky in only six years, Dr. Mark T. Fillmore has had an alcohol research career marked with impressive achievements. Dr. Fillmore believes this rapid advancement had its basis in the findings gained from his 1997 ABMRF grant, "Alcohol and impaired inhibitory self-control: Environmental and personal risk factors," which studied the acute effects of alcohol on the mental functions in social drinkers.

When Dr. Fillmore applied for a Foundation grant as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Waterloo in Canada, he was just beginning his explorations on how alcohol affects cognitive functions. Today, he continues to investigate how alcohol and drugs alter human behavioral and mental function. Focusing on the development of alcohol tolerance in social drinkers, Dr. Fillmore’s work shows that the disinhibiting effects of alcohol are present even after other impairing effects have diminished. This may be illustrated in drinkers who decide to drive after drinking because they detect no impairment of their motor coordination, yet they may be at risk for impulsive driving because their inhibitory control has not recovered from the effects of alcohol. His research also examines those drinkers with attention/deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), who demonstrate increased sensitivity to the disinhibiting effects of alcohol and report greater rewarding effects when compared with subjects without the disorder. This increased sensitivity may contribute to this population’s increased risk for early-onset alcohol abuse.

In terms of career opportunities, I believe that the publications that stemmed from my ABMRF grant launched my career,” Dr. Fillmore offers. read more...