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Promising efforts to mitigate the opioid crisis
Opioid bottle with pills.

Promising efforts to mitigate the opioid crisis

Margaret Lowenstein, an LDI senior fellow and assistant professor of medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine discusses the increase in opioid and drug overdoses since the COVID-19 pandemic.

From Penn LDI

Parental nicotine use and addiction risk for children
A put-out cigarette standing on its end, next to half of another crumpled cigarette. In the background are two whole cigarettes.
  • Q&A

    • Parental nicotine use and addiction risk for children

    In research done using rats, Penn Nursing’s Heath Schmidt and colleagues found that males that engaged in voluntary nicotine use had offspring more likely to do so, too. Some offspring also developed impaired memory and anxiety-like behavior.

    Michele W. Berger

    Elizabeth Heller’s lab uncovers how drug addiction can create lasting changes in genes
    Elizabeth Heller.

    Elizabeth Heller, assistant professor of pharmacology and head of the Heller Lab.

    Elizabeth Heller’s lab uncovers how drug addiction can create lasting changes in genes

    Leading a neuroepigenetics lab at her alma mater, Heller and the work of her 10-person lab is focused on molecular brain mechanisms, aiming to uncover chronic changes that can happen and keep happening in the brain long after exposure to addictive substances ends.

    Alex Gardner

    The origins of the opioid epidemic
    Prescription form on a clipboard.

    The origins of the opioid epidemic

    The study, “Origins of the Opioid Crisis and its Enduring Impacts” examines the role of the 1996 introduction and marketing of OxyContin as a potential leading cause of the opioid crisis. 

    From Penn LDI