DIA is Proud to Announce the Keynote Speaker: Nora D. Volkow, MD
All Hands on Deck: Using Science to Help Solve the Opioid Crisis
Monday, June 25 | 8:30-10:00AM
Every day, more than 115 Americans die after overdosing on opioids. The misuse of and addiction to opioids—including prescription pain relievers, heroin, and synthetic opioids such as fentanyl—is a serious national crisis that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the total "economic burden" of prescription opioid misuse alone in the United States is $78.5 billion a year, including the costs of healthcare, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement.Yet the need for pain management therapies is great. More than 25 million Americans suffer from chronic pain and are in need of therapies to manage it. As the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at NIH, Dr. Nora Volkow will present her vision for therapeutics and devices in pain modulation and opioid addiction, with a focus on developing better overdose-reversal and prevention interventions to reduce mortality, saving lives for future treatment and recovery; finding new, innovative medications and technologies to treat opioid addiction; and finding safe, effective, non-addictive interventions to manage chronic pain. Public-private partnerships will play a key role in meeting these challenges through the development of new technologies, regulatory science, and exploratory basic research.
"In order for us to be successful in our mission, which is to bring the power of knowledge into solutions for the prevention and treatment of substance abuse disorders, for us to succeed, we have to partner with multiple institutions…Being able to bring that knowledge into practice requires collaboration."
