al'Absi Named Founding Director

New Duluth Medical Research Institute Announced

September 21, 2007    Mustafa al'Absi, Ph.D., has been named the first director of the new Duluth Medical Research Institute (DMRI) at the University of Minnesota Medical School – Duluth Campus.

Announcing the appointment, Gary L. Davis, Ph.D., senior associate dean of the medical school campus, attributed his selection of al’Absi to his strong biological, behavioral and clinical research skills and his prominence within the national scientific community. “Professor al’Absi’s research crosses many disciplines,” he said, “and his excellent regional, national and international reputation will raise the visibility of our research achievements, expand our research base and strengthen our ability to develop more research funding.”

al’Absi has secured funding for research from such national organizations as the National Institutes of Health (NIH); National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the American Heart Association. This month Davis also announced that al’Absi and a national team received a $1.6 million, four-year grant from the NIH for collaborative research that will quantify the physical connection between stress and addictive substances. 

“The research community in the Medical School welcomes this new institute. We look forward to positive effects on collaboration between the two campuses of the school,” said Vice Dean for Research of the University of Minnesota Medical School Charles Moldow, M.D. “We expect Dr. al’Absi to be an outstanding director for this new institute.”

According to Davis, the concept of an institute will help leverage existing and future resources to create collaborative relationships among researchers from multiple biomedical and clinical disciplines at the university and at community health agencies. “We plan to develop groundbreaking programs in biomedical and health research as well as clinical research programs to translate research discoveries,” he said.

“Extending the collaboration between the pharmacy and medical schools and other departments here on the Duluth campus into the research arena is very important,” said Randall D. Seifert, Pharm.D.,senior associate dean and professor, Department of Pharmacy Practice and Pharmaceutical Sciences. “Because funding for research is limited, anything that we can do to maximize the collaborative effort of our work makes us more competitive with other institutions seeking research funding.”

“Ultimately we want to advance new therapies for treating disease that will improve quality of life. Collaboration is the key to achieving that,” al’Absi said. “A research institute that will attract outstanding transdisciplinary scientists and provide unique opportunities for graduate and professional fellows to conduct research is one way to make that happen.”

al’Absi is nationally known for his research on the links between stress and addiction. His research focuses on neurobiological mechanisms of stress and risk for heart disease; biological and psychosocial predictors of addiction and relapse; and brain functions associated with pain. He is a standing member of the NIH Study Section on Biobehavioral Mechanisms of Emotion, Stress and Health. He is also a council member of the American Psychosomatic Society and the associate editor of the journal Psychophysiology.

al’Absi also recently developed and edited a textbook, Stress and Addiction: Biological and Psychological Mechanisms, published by Elsevier Academic Press. According to reviewers, this was the first book to gather and synthesize existing knowledge on the connection between stress and addiction.