Preclinical Medications Screening in Alcohol Misuse, Negative Affect and Pain

Developing medications for treatment of alcohol use disorder is a high priority for the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

NIAAA has initiated a Preclinical Medication Efficacy Testing Program to foster discovery of medication targets and lead compounds to treat alcohol use disorder.

This program included the establishment of a coordinated infrastructure and network of preclinical laboratory models that can be employed to effectively screen potential therapeutics.

A goal of this initiative was to facilitate the testing of clinically available pharmacotherapies as well as novel proprietary compounds in standardized preclinical models that capture key elements of alcohol use disorder.

Recognized as a critical step in the medications development process, information generated from this preclinical work is designed to both inform subsequent efforts to advance the evaluation of candidate compounds in human laboratory studies and controlled clinical trials.

The purpose of this contract is to perform the blind testing of reference compounds, compounds of interest, and proprietary compounds in preclinical models of various aspects of alcohol misuse/alcohol use disorder including excessive alcohol consumption, negative affect, and pain.