Newswise — Mark T. Gladwin, MD, Dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), today announced the appointment of Kelly Dunn, PhD, MBAone of the nation’s leading researchers in the field of opioid use disorders, as the first director of the school’s Kahlert Institute for Addiction Medicine. She will also serve as a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and hold an adjunct appointment in the Department of Neurobiology at UMSOM.

Dr. Dunn is currently a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and also holds a joint professorship in Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.

Dr. Dunn has served as principal investigator on projects totaling over $21 million in National Institutes of Health grants, and she is the author of over 130 peer-reviewed publications in the area of ​​substance use and opioid use disorders.

The Kahlert Institute for Addiction Medicine, established in 2023 with a generous gift from the Kahlert Foundation, is uniquely positioned to bring together leading addiction experts from basic science and clinical care to transform addiction prevention, treatment, education and research.

“Addiction, substance abuse and overdose deaths are reaching epidemic proportions here in Maryland and across the United States, and we are extremely pleased to have a top scientist and leader in the field join us to lead the Institute with long-term impact,” said Dean Gladwin.

Growing up in rural Central New York in the late 1990s, Dr. Dunn witnessed several close friends become addicted to opioids after initially being exposed to them through prescription medications and eventually developing opioid use disorder (OUD). “This sparked my lifelong passion to understand the motivations behind opioid use, find methods to prevent the onset of OUD, and help improve the treatment of OUD,” said Dr. Dunn. “I am honored and delighted to take over the leadership of the Kahlert Institute and to advance the science of addiction medicine together with the outstanding lecturers who are among the leading minds in addiction research at a world level.”

Since 2012, Dr. Dunn has been a faculty member in the Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit (BPRU) at Johns Hopkins University, part of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Her current work focuses on conducting Phase II/III randomized controlled evaluations of medications, particularly those targeting opioid use disorder.

In addition, she led studies on the treatment of cigarette smoking and alcohol abuse and conducted several basic science laboratory studies on drug effects in humans. In addition, she worked on epidemiological analyses and machine learning methods on publicly available data sets.

She has held numerous leadership positions in the substance use field, including president of the Society for Psychopharmacology and Substance Use of the American Psychological Association and the College on the Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD), and co-editor of the Journal of Addiction Medicine and editor-in-chief of the magazine Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology.

“Dr. Dunn’s current work in this area is impressive,” said Greg Kahlert, President of the Kahlert Foundation. “I am confident that her experience, passion and team spirit will help us find treatments and cures for addiction. I am thrilled that she is the first director of the Kahlert Institute for Addiction Medicine.”

Dr. Dunn is currently the principal investigator of a multicenter trial of a treatment for comorbid pain in people with opioid use disorder. She is also an investigator of a Phase II trial evaluating the use of the drug suvorexant to treat sleep disturbances, withdrawal symptoms, and cravings in people starting treatment with buprenorphine for opioid use disorder.

Other studies include a combined laboratory/clinical study examining opioid withdrawal phenotypes and a pilot study evaluating suvorexant for cocaine use in patients treated for OUD. Dr. Dunn recently completed a series of human laboratory studies examining genetic contributions to opioid sensitivity and opioid-cannabinoid interactions for pain management in healthy and clinical populations.

In addition to her numerous peer-reviewed original and review publications, Dr. Dunn was editor of the Oxford Handbook of Opioids and Opioid Use DisordersShe received her PhD from the University of Vermont in 2009 and an MBA from the Johns Hopkins University Carey School of Business in 2019.