PUBLISHED October 21, 2005 IN Campus, Academics, Medicine

Ashwin Patkar: New Directions in Treating Addictions

Director of Duke Addictions Program working with community organizations

By Duke Today Staff

Editor's Note:

Dr. Ashwin A. Patkar, associate professor of psychiatry, is the new medical director of the Duke Addictions Program. He was recruited from Thomas Jefferson University Hospital of Philadelphia where he served as director of the section on biological psychiatry and clinical trials.

The Duke Addictions Program offers integrated treatment approaches for chemically dependent patients, as well as a continuum of care along with services that address issues involved in alcohol and drug addiction.

Patkar recently traveled to Tennessee to discuss including Centerstone, a 34-county treatment provider based in Nashville, to become a part of Duke's Clinical Trials Network for Substance Abuse, which is sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

His group is looking to collaborate with Centerstone to submit grants and develop new medications to treat methamphetamine abuse, a growing problem in Tennessee and western North Carolina. Patkar also has been involved in research of pharmaceutical combinations that appear to work well in animal models.