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Governor Tom Wolf and State Senators Visits Temple

News June 03, 2016

Dr. Unterwald (left), Gov. Wolf, and State Sen. Tartaglione speak at a press conference in the MERB lobby about the vital need for more substance abuse research, such as that conducted at LKSOM.

Pennsylvania is facing unprecedented fallout from an epidemic of opioid and other drug abuse, which affects at least one in four families and causes thousands of deaths each year. To learn more about how to attack this crisis at its source, Pa. Governor Tom Wolf visited the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University’s (LKSOM) Center for Substance Abuse Research (CSAR) on June 2nd. He was accompanied by State Senators Christine Tartaglione and Shirley Kitchen, whose districts include Temple University Health System providers who treat people battling drug abuse.

Greeting the distinguished visitors was Steven R. Houser, PhD, FAHA, Senior Associate Dean of Research, Chair of Physiology, Vera J. Goodfriend Endowed Chair of Cardiovascular Research, and Director of Temple’s Cardiovascular Research Center, who also introduced them to a group of CSAR faculty members for a roundtable discussion about the varied scope and depth of the Center’s research. 

“Governor Wolf has been a tireless advocate for medical education and research in Pennsylvania. He and his team have been strong partners in Temple’s ongoing efforts to provide high-quality care in our North Philadelphia communities, and have been strong supporters of the cutting-edge research that we do here, which will improve the health and reduce disparities in the vulnerable neighborhoods we serve,” said Houser. “Likewise, both Senator Kitchen, whose district includes our Medical School and Temple University Hospital, and Senator Tartaglione, whose district includes our Episcopal, Fox Chase, and Jeanes campuses, have been relentless in support of our hospitals, patients, and the neighborhoods we so proudly serve,” he added.

CSAR Director and Professor of Pharmacology Ellen M. Unterwald, PhD, delivered to the governmental guests a detailed summary of CSAR’s infrastructure and research agenda and remarked how co-locating researchers from many varied disciplines in one Center within LKSOM greatly facilitates cutting-edge discoveries and research advances. The Center is one of 14 in the United States to be designated a “Core Center of Excellence” by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and brings together 30 experts in disciplines as diverse as pharmacology, microbiology, and immunology. 

“Our center is dedicated to performing research on addictive diseases in order to better understand the impact of drug abuse on the brain and the biological mechanisms involved in addiction, with the goal of finding novel treatments for a disease that has had such a negative impact on our families and community,” Dr. Unterwald said. She led the Governor and Senators on a tour of CSAR’s research facilities, and explained the Center’s work both to understand addiction and to discover alternatives to opioids for pain control.

Governor Wolf listened intently to the researchers, asked insightful questions, and spoke about what he learned during a press conference. “The researchers upstairs have been working on this for 18 years,” he said. “We have to figure out how to take the good research going on in places like Temple and turn it into public policy.” He mentioned that his proposed budget includes $34 million, to be matched by $16 million from the federal government, for establishing a statewide network of 50 drug-abuse treatment centers.

Senator Tartaglione called Temple “a diamond in the rough” and added, “Hopefully, with a little bit more research from Temple, we’ll be on our way to eradicating the drug addiction epidemic.”


Photo Caption: Dr. Unterwald (left), Gov. Wolf, and State Sen. Tartaglione speak at a press conference in the MERB lobby about the vital need for more substance abuse research, such as that conducted at LKSOM.