How research grants awarded to Saint Louis University and Washington University will address St. Louis’ growing opioid crisis

In 2018, more than 930 people died in the metro area from an opioid overdose, according to a recently released report.

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A report released last week by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse stated that more than 930 people in the metro area died last year from an opioid overdose—up from 700 recorded deaths in 2017. The growing problem is something that local universities, including Saint Louis University and Washington University, have recently been awarded several grants to research.     

The National Institute of Health (NIH) awarded five grants totaling $6.4 million dollars. This was backed by Missouri senator Roy Blunt, Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor/HHS).  

Three of these grants address pain management. Two grants are funding two studies at Washington University. The $1.2 million for pain management and the other for $2.1 million to study new drug options for opioid use disorder (OUD).  

The third pain-related grant is for $2.1 million which was awarded to a Saint Louis University multidisciplinary research team headed by Daniela Salvemini and Gina Yosten on how to manage neuropathic pain, which is pain caused by disease, injury, or a potential side effect of chemotherapy medications to the somatosensory system.

“Neuropathic pain is the most difficult state of pain for patients to manage due to few available drug options," Salvemini says. "These drugs like opioids can cause side effects including addiction.”  

Salvemini and Yosten’s team will build on previous research that shows a receptor located in the spinal cord, GPR160, is ‘intimately related’ to neuropathic pain. By blocking it, neuropathic pain can be reversed or even be prevented.

“The purpose of this study is to understand how activation of this receptor within the central nervous system contributes to the development of chronic neuropathic pain states,” Salvemini says. To do this, they will observe the effects of inhibiting GPR160 by antibodies or genetic manipulation on various models of neuropathic pain. One type will be traumatic nerve–induced pain while the other will be chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. They hope to validate GPR160 as a target for therapeutic intervention that will lead to the discovery of nonopioid drugs to treat neuropathic pain.

The final two NIH grants were awarded to Washington University. One of these is for $265,360 to study outcomes for infants and children exposed to opioids. The last of these grants awarded the university $637,127 to study new ways to prevent and treat opioid addiction.

In addition to NIH, Graduate Psychology Education (GPE) through Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) recently awarded a three-year grant for $820,000 to two Saint Louis University clinical psychologists Terri Weaver and Jeremiah Weinstock. This grant will fund Opioid Use Disorder training opportunities for four clinical psychology graduate students each year through Scaling Up.

These students will be placed in two community primary care settings to increase or ‘scale-up’ the psychology workforce within two regional locations where demand for OUD services is high and access is low. One is within St. Louis City with Family Care Health Centers while the other is in local rural areas through Chestnut Health Systems including using Telehealth to reach people who live in remote areas.  

Additional training opportunities include bringing in experts to speak on various interventions and treatments related to OUD. These sessions are open to the psychology department and sometimes even the entire St. Louis community. OUD information will be added to all of the existing core clinical psychology courses to “build a more informed workforce on some of our greatest public health needs,” Weaver says.

Scaling Up's short-term goal is to increase access to these health care interventions to patients located in these high need areas, Weaver says. The long-term goals are that these graduate students become better prepared to handle the opioid crisis and that they will choose to continue working with underserved populations in future internships and jobs where they are much needed. 

Weaver says, “We hope it helps reduce overdose and the other problems people are experiencing with OUD.”

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