New program teaches addiction science
The School of Pharmacy announced in August the establishment of the education program Rising STARS — Scientific Training in Alcohol Research and other Substances — which intends to expose undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds to interdisciplinary opportunities in addiction science. The program will be a partnership between USC, California State University, Los Angeles and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. Rising STARS is currently accepting applications for its first cohort.
Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education at the USC School of Pharmacy and professor of clinical pharmacy Daryl Davies is an associate director of the USC Institute for Addiction Science and the principal investigator for Rising STARS. Davies was inspired to begin Rising STARS after discovering that undergraduate students have little research opportunities, which limits their ability to choose a graduate program that suits their interests.
“[Rising STARS] gives them all the hands-on experience to be successful and jump right into a graduate or Ph.D. program,” Davies said, referring to the research experience, workshops and career building activities Rising STARS scholars will engage in.
Workshops during the school year may be completed in-person or remotely, allowing Rising STARS scholars at CSULA and CDU flexibility in completing the program. Workshops will cover a variety of topics to prepare students for their future higher education, including resume writing sessions. Scholars will also have the opportunity to work in USC labs during the summer.
Rising STARS will consist of approximately 80 faculty members from various schools, including the School of Pharmacy, the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, who will mentor scholars during their program term. Rising STARS will use an interdisciplinary approach to expose scholars to a variety of approaches to studying addiction science and allow scholars to explore the approach they are interested in.
Terry David Church, an assistant professor of regulatory and quality sciences, runs the educational component of Rising STARS. Church said he expects the program to begin with approximately 50 scholars and expand over time.
“We have to use skills outside of our academic discipline to investigate the issue of addiction,” Church said. “We expose [students] to different ways of looking at information to have the best tools.”
Chief Programs and Communications Officer for the USC Institute for Addiction Science Vickie Williams facilitates addiction science operations at USC, and said she hopes students from different disciplines will collaborate in Rising STARS.
“We want to cultivate talents of very motivated undergraduate, underrepresented, minority students and give them an opportunity to be a part of a really great training opportunity,” Williams said. “Whether that’s in pre-clinical laboratories, public health policy — anything that focuses on addiction science.”
Davies emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to addiction science. Research projects require support from experts in a variety of fields to be completed and using a holistic approach to addiction science allows for students to have a better understanding of the field and work easily in teams.
“Understanding addiction is going to take perspectives from around the academic table,” Church said. “There are so many things that addiction touches.”
The Rising STARS program was awarded a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse — the first of its kind to enhance diversity in addiction science in the nation — to assist with educational efforts. It will be distributed to the program over approximately a five-year time frame, which will support two cohorts of scholars for two-year terms.
Church said studying addiction science is important because, as time progresses, new compounds and drugs are created. Some drugs have the potential to be highly addictive and must be studied at the molecular and societal levels to prevent addiction.
“Addiction spans a gamut of subjects,” Williams said, noting that sources of addiction are plenty and diverse. “There’s opioids, intravenous injectable drugs, social media, phones and dietary addictions.”
Rising STARS intends to give underrepresented students the opportunity to be innovative, creative and flexible, Davies said.
“The goal is to really bring people in and help develop their creativity and also push forward their desire, interest and understanding of what addiction science really entails,” Church said. “Through their participation, [students] will hopefully be able to help us solve a lot of problems we’ve encountered in addiction, in terms of making sure we have good programs for treatment, research and care.”
Correction: A previous version of this story stated that Daryl Davies is the associate dean for undergraduate education at California State University, Los Angeles. Davies is the associate dean for undergraduate education at the University of Southern California’s School of Pharmacy. The Daily Trojan regrets this error.