NIH Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Opioid Settlement Foundation Commits $20 Million To New Program

The organization responsible for West Virginia’s opioid settlement money committed $20 million to an outcomes-based addiction recovery project.

In a special meeting of the West Virginia First Foundation (WVFF), the nonprofit’s board approved $20 million for the Appalachian Continuum of Care for Overdose Reduction Network (ACCORN) project.

While the board approved the $20 million commitment, a Monday afternoon press release clarified that WVFF must submit a formal application to the federal government for approval and funding. Final decisions are expected in early 2025.

This allocation is not part of the foundation’s Initial Opportunity Grant cycle, which was approved in September with a total of $19.2 million available in funding.That money will be sent to communities and organizations that apply for the money.

Executive Director Jonathan Board said while working through those grant applications, the foundation discovered other programs that might help fight the opioid epidemic.

“These things were happening all sort of concurrently, along with our Initial Opportunity Grants process, and we’re excited to have an opportunity to discuss one of these that has gone through this process here today,” Board said.

Dr. Matthew Christiansen, Region Four representative and state health officer, presented the financial structure of the ACCORN project to the board.

“It’s outcomes-based,” Christiansen said. “We wouldn’t pay unless they meet the measures on the front end. This is not money that goes out the door without accountability.”

Board told the WVFF board the ACCORN project has three measures it will focus on to improve outcomes to qualify to receive ARPA-H HEROES funding.

The first measure aims to reduce the number of infants born exposed to illicit drugs in West Virginia, called neonatal abstinence syndrome, also known as NAS.

West Virginia leads the nation in rates of infants born with NAS, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with 68 out of every 1,000 babies born in the state exposed to drugs in 2020.

The criteria for payment by the state will be a 10 percent reduction in rates of NAS after year two and a 15 percent reduction after year three.

The second measure aims to reduce the state’s rate of recidivism, the tendency for an offender to relapse into criminal behavior after their release from custody.

According to the most recent available data from West Virginia’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2020, West Virginia’s recidivism rate was 29.25 percent over a three-year period.

In a 2020 press release, DHS said among all the individuals released in 2016, nearly 21 percent had been convicted of drug-related offenses and their recidivism rate was 24 percent.

Jeff Sandy, former cabinet secretary of the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security and WVFF board member, said during Monday’s virtual meeting he is hopeful the ACCORN project will bring rates of recidivism down.

“I stress the importance of trying to do something to make life better for our convicted individuals in the state who have served their time and they’ve come out and they need help,” Sandy said. “They need help so they do not go back to their future ways, and this program has a branch of it that is designed to help those individuals who, when they get out of prison, they need support.”

The third and final measure requires participants in any ACCORN-funded program to be drug-screened twice per month.

The foundation’s most recent financial statement available on the website is from Oct. 31 and reflects a balance of about $226 million in the account.

NIH Grant Boosts Vision Research At WVU

A large federal grant will help researchers at West Virginia University understand vision problems.

The National Institutes of Health has awarded West Virginia University an $11 million Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant for a visual sciences research center.

The funding will help WVU recruit researchers and clinician-scientists who will work together to develop innovative ways to prevent, treat and slow the progression of vision problems and blinding eye disease that are currently incurable.

West Virginia has one of the highest rates of visual disability in the U.S. The CDC estimates four percent of West Virginians live with blindness or severe difficulty seeing even with glasses.

In a press release from WVU, the principal COBRE investigator Visvanathan Ramamurthy said the center’s research could have implications across—and beyond—West Virginia.

Successful WVU STEM Mentoring Program Heads to Alabama

The West Virginian Health Sciences and Technology Academy, known as HSTA, is a mentoring program housed at West Virginia University. It helps participating students succeed in science, technology, engineering and math-based undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

Now, that program is going on the road. The University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing in Tuscaloosa, Alabama has received a $1.2 million Science Education Partnership Award from the National Institutes of Health to set up a HSTA program there over the next five years.

This is the first full-scale Health Sciences and Technology Academy outside of West Virginia.

The Alabama program will serve primarily rural, low-income African American high-schoolers.

Of the 3,000 young people who have graduated from West Virginia’s HSTA program, 99 percent have gone on to college, 89 percent have obtained a college degree, 84 percent continue to live and work in West Virginia, and they earn, on average, $30,000 more per year than their highest-earning parent.

Robin Bartlett, associate dean for research at the University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing, will lead the team in establishing the nursing-focused pilot program in Alabama’s Hale and Pickens counties.

In speaking to the importance of HSTA-AL, Bartlett said, “Our state is in dire need of more nurses, particularly nurse scientists, nurse faculty, and registered nurses from rural areas and diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. To change this dynamic, we must encourage students from underrepresented populations to enter the field of nursing before they graduate from high school. We will build on WV HSTA’s successes, opening Alabama high school students up to the possibilities of a biomedical career, especially a career in nursing.”

NIH Begins Clinical Trial on Drug to Treat Opioid Cravings

The National Institutes of Health has begun a clinical trial on a drug designed to treat cravings associated with opioid use disorder.

There are a handful of drugs already on the market that are commonly used to treat OUD such as methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone. But these are either synthetic opioids or have little impact on cravings specifically. The new drug, if successful, will focus on targeting the cravings felt by some patients who have OUD – and hopefully help them maintain sobriety.

Researchers will examine how the new drug is processed by the body when used together with another drug that is processed by the same pathways. The idea is to see how the new drug would respond if a physician were to use it in conjunction with other medications like naltrexone, or if a physician were treating cravings for opioid use disorder while also treating the patient for a related disease like HIV.

The study will enroll 50 healthy adults aged 18 through 65 years. Participants will stay in the Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, for 10 days and return for a final outpatient visit after one week.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from Marshall Health and Charleston Area Medical Center.

NIH Funding Also Boosts Local Economy, Provides Jobs, Brief Argues

In its proposed budget released this week, the Trump administration called for big cuts to national medical and science funding institutions. In response, a medical research advocacy organization has published a brief on the impact of National Institutes of Health funding.

Most National Institutes of Health or NIH funding goes to major research institutes such as Johns Hopkins, Stanford and the University of Pennsylvania. But smaller institutions such as West Virginia University and Marshall also receive funding for research into health issues such if fracking has impacts on cardiovascular health.

The new report, published by the NIH advocacy organization United for Medical Research, argues that in addition to supporting vital medical research, NIH grants have broad economic impact on the labor force and local economy. In West Virginia, for instance, they report that in 2017 the state received more than $28 million in funding, which generated $6 million in taxes for local governments and supported around 400 jobs.

The Trump administration proposed cutting the NIH 12 percent and the National Science Foundation 13 percent. Medical and science research institutes around the country have pushed back against the proposal.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from Marshall Health and Charleston Area Medical Center.