Mentoring in Patient Oriented Research for Digital Biomarker-Driven Solutions to prevent and Treat Opioid Use Disorder

About This Grant

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSRACT Novel, personalized solutions to the substance use disorder (SUD) epidemic are desperately needed, as is a workforce of highly skilled scientists who will develop them. Dr. Carreiro is a physician-scientist who has developed a successful independent research program which takes a personalized medicine approach to address the current SUD crisis. In the current proposal, she will leverage her expertise and existing resources to create unique training opportunities for mentees both locally and through her national mentoring network within the specialty of medical toxicology through three integrated training goals and research aims. The training goals are to 1) Enhance Dr. Carreiro's research program and knowledge in precision medicine for SUD to provide novel and innovative opportunities for mentees, 2) Enhance her capacity to effectively provide mentorship to diverse mentees in digital health for SUD, and 3) Advance her leadership skills to support extension of her mentorship activities in a programmatic fashion. Simultaneously, she will curate opportunities for mentees though three related research aims: Aim 1: Development of a novel wearable sensing system, MINDER, which will continuously monitor physiologic parameters, and use machine learning algorithms to accurately identify buprenorphine adherence. Aim 1a: Curate a high quality annotated physiological dataset of individuals undergoing buprenorphine induction using the wearable MINDER-Band. Aim 1b: Use buprenorphine induction data collected to build the machine learning algorithms and clinical interface for the MINDER system, Aim 2: Model wearable sensor based digital biomarkers of opioid craving in patients receiving medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD, including methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone) and to develop digital phenotypes. Aim 2a: Model trajectories of craving during initiation of treatment with MOUD and examine mediators and moderators between craving patterns and opioid use outcomes. Aim 2b: Develop clinically informed digital phenotypes that predict MOUD outcomes. Aim 3: Develop clinically informed digital phenotypes that predict adverse outcomes of opioid use. This new study will leverage data from Dr. Carreiro's biometric repository as well as prospectively collected wearable sensor data to develop a digital pharmacovigilance tool (POPi: Pharmacovigilance for Opioid Pre-addiction Identification) to monitor opioid analgesic therapy and support safe prescribing. The activities in this K24 award will allow Dr. Carreiro to continue to dedicate time to mentorship, specifically to focus her efforts on post-doctoral and junior faculty mentees who are pursing K23 pathways and scale up her mentorship efforts on a programmatic level. This experience will ultimately propel mentees' own careers in patient-oriented research, enhance the workforce of experienced clinician-scientists focusing on personalized solutions for substance use disorders, and improve the lives of people with this devastating disease.