Research Opportunities in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology

NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY

REESE T. JONES, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry

Dr. Jones' research focuses on the clinical psychopharmacology of cannabis, nicotine, cocaine, and LSD; and interactions with other commonly used psychoactive drugs such as alcohol and caffeine. The emphasis is on understanding relationships between drug effects, dose and kinetics, particularly studies that might help understand the phenomena of tolerance and dependence. Current experiments are examining cocaine and other drug interactions (alcohol and buprenophine), and relationships between route of administration (smoked, oral, nasal, intravenous) of cocaine and pharmacodynamics and kinetics.

Pharmacokinetic studies of new treatment drugs for opiate, cocaine and other drug dependencies; and drug trials of treatments for depression and anxiety disorders coexisting with drug dependence are underway. The laboratory is in a psychiatric hospital setting with access to psychiatric inpatients and outpatients. The laboratory has facilities for computerized cardiovascular, autonomic, perceptual motor performance, and quantified neurological tests and also psychological assessment. Quantitative electroencephalographic mapping and computer resources for modeling of drug kinetics and effects are available. Inpatient studies use the facilities of the Behavioral Neuroscience Psychiatric Research Ward and the UCSF GCRC.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

Ackland ML, van de Waarsenburg S, Jones R. Synergistic antiproliferative action of the flavonols quercetin and kaempferol in cultured human cancer cell lines. In Vivo, 19(1):69-76, 2005.
Buzzai M, Bauer DE, Jones RG, Deberardinis RJ, Hatzivassiliou G, Elstrom RL, Thompson CB. The glucose dependence of Akt-transformed cells can be reversed by pharmacologic activation of fatty acid beta-oxidation. Oncogene, 2005.
Cox-Ganser JM, White SK, Jones R, Hilsbos K, Storey E, Enright PL, Rao CY, Kreiss K. Respiratory morbidity in office workers in a water-damaged building. Environ Health Perspect, 113(4):485-490, 2005.