NIDA has awarded postdoctoral fellowships to scientists from Russia and Spain. The fellows will work with mentors who are NIDA grantees at the mentors' institutions in the United States.
The NIDA INVEST Drug Abuse Research Fellow is Marina Vetrova, M.D., a researcher at First Pavlov State Medical University, St. Petersburg, Russia. She will investigate the relationships between HIV infection, substance use stigma, initiation of antiretroviral treatment, and achievement of viral load suppression from both patient and health care provider perspectives. Further studies will assess provider attitudes as a potential source of stigma experienced by people who use drugs and have HIV infection. Dr. Vetrova will work with Jeffrey Samet, M.D., M.P.H., Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health.
Esperanza Romero Rodríguez, M.D., is an emergency doctor in the Spanish National Health System. She will use her NIDA INVEST/Clinical Trials Network (CTN) Drug Abuse Research Fellowship to assess the associations between marijuana and cocaine use, heavy drinking, abstinence, alcohol consequences, and health-related quality of life. She will conduct a secondary analysis of prospectively collected data from the Boston University Alcohol Disorder Hospital Treatment (ADOPT) study. Her mentor is Richard Saitz, M.D., M.P.H., Boston University School of Public Health.