PROTEA Research
PROTEA engages in a variety of research efforts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and beyond through collaborations across the country. The goal of our research program is to enhance treatment and prevention for substance use disorders, substance misuse, and related conditions. We engage in a program of research that spans from clinical efficacy trials to translational investigations in health services research and implementation science.
Please email protea.research@mailplus.wisc.edu for any questions related to clinical trial eligibility and enrollment.
Active Studies
Psychedelic and MDMA Studies
Funding Source: Heffter Research Institute
Principal Investigator: Randall Brown, MD, PhD, DFASAM
Purpose: Evaluate safety and feasibility of two guided psilocybin dosing sessions in a sample of 10 adult participants receiving buprenorphine for opioid use disorder.
Funding Source: Transcend Therapeutics
Principal Investigator: Christopher Nicholas, PhD
Purpose: This study is evaluating the safety and efficacy of TSND-201 (methylone) in adults with PTSD.
Funding Source: The Tiny Blue Dot Foundation
Principal Investigator: Charles Raison, MD
Sub-Investigator: Christopher Nicholas, PhD
Purpose: This pilot study aims to establish a dosing regimen for intravenous psilocybin that will allow the drug to be administered to sleeping participants without awakening them and assess whether this dosing regimen produces a psychedelic experience.
Funding Source: Beckley Foundation
Site Investigators: Christopher Nicholas, PhD, and Randy Brown, MD, PhD, DFASAM
Purpose: Investigate the efficacy and safety of a single dose of BPL-003 for treatment-resistant depression.
Reach out to bpl003wi@fammed.wisc.edu for more information
Source: Revive Therapeutics
Principle Investigator: Christopher Nicholas, PhD
Purpose: Evaluate the safety and feasibility of two guided psilocybin dosing sessions in a sample of 12 adult participants with methamphetamine use disorder.
Funding Source: DFMCH Small Grant
Principal Investigator: Christopher Nicholas, PhD
Description: The objectives of this study are to identify cortical functional connectivity associated with a multi-sensory predictive coding task and to identify differential changes in cognitive flexibility and functional connectivity during predictive processing.
Funding Source: DFMCH Small Grant
Principal Investigator: Amelia Baltes
Co-Investigator: David Horton
Description: The project utilizes qualitative interviewing to elucidate the similarities and differences between therapist and participant perceptions of psilocybin- and MDMA-assisted therapy to inform therapeutic process and outcome research, PAT treatment development, and future clinical trial design.
Community-Engaged and Health Services Research
Funding Source: DFMCH Small Grant
Principal Investigator: David Leinweber, MD
Purpose: Evaluate the feasibility of collecting health information relevant for outcomes of pain and risk for misuse, following a traumatic injury requiring hospitalization.
Funding Source: Wisconsin Partnership Program
Purpose: Test the feasibility and acceptability of an adaptive intervention to improve health outcomes, following traumatic injury, in order to prevent opioid misuse.
Funding Source: NIH-NIDA
Principal Investigator: Ryan Westergaard, MD, PhD, MPH
Co-Investigator: Randall Brown, MD, PhD, DFASAM
Description: The project proposes a multi-phase, mixed-methods study that aims to implement and evaluate a novel community response model, which we have named the Community-Based, Client-Centered Prevention Home. Using the organizational infrastructure of a large, multi-site syringe service program serving a geographically dispersed population of people who inject drugs in rural communities across Northern Wisconsin, we will build locally responsive systems to facilitate uptake of evidence-based prevention services for high-risk clients.
Funding Source: NIH-NIDA
Principal Investigator: John J. Curtin, PhD
Co-Investigator: Randall Brown, MD, PhD, DFASAM
Description: The broad goals of this project are to develop and deliver highly contextualized, lapse risk prediction models for forecasting day-by-day probability of opioid and other drug use lapse among people pursuing drug abstinence. This lapse risk prediction model will be delivered within the Addiction-Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (A-CHESS) mobile app, which has been established by RCT as a state-of-the-art mHealth system for providing continuing care services for alcohol and substance use disorders.
Funding Source: NIH-NIDA
Principal Investigator: Andrew Quanbeck, PhD
Co-Investigator: Randall Brown, MD, PhD, DFASAM
Description: The research aims to identify which sequence and combination of implementation strategies works most effectively in promoting practice change in different primary care clinics. The research serves the long-term goal of learning how to optimize implementation strategies to promote evidence-based practice in primary care settings.
Funding Source: DFMCH Small Grant
Principal Investigator: David Horton
Co-Investigator: Randall Brown, MD, PhD, DFASAM
Description: The project investigates rates of interrupting medications for opioid use disorder in the context of post-surgical pain management. The research is mixed methods, combining data collected from electronic medical records, survey, and qualitative interview data to inform current practices and surgeon decision-making surrounding pain management in individuals medicated for OUD.
Funding Source: NIH-NIDA
Principal Investigator: Andrew Quanbeck, PhD
Co-Investigator: Randall Brown, MD, PhD, DFASAM
Description: The research aims to identify which sequence and combination of implementation strategies works most effectively in promoting practice change in different primary care clinics. The research serves the long-term goal of learning how to optimize implementation strategies to promote evidence-based practice in primary care settings.
Funding Source: NIH-NIDA 4R01DA030431-05
Principal Investigator: Todd Molfenter, PhD (Industrial & Systems Engineering)
Co-Investigator: Randall Brown, MD, PhD, DFASAM
Description: This trial will study the impact of Ohio counties (payers) and addiction treatment organizations working in partnership to remove systemic barriers to adopting the evidence-based practice (EBP) buprenorphine, a medication for opioid dependence. While various implementation strategies have targeted clinicians and/or treatment provider organizations, we believe this to be among the first controlled studies to systematically study the impact payer and provider strategies have on the implementation and dissemination of an EBP.
Funding Source: NIH-NIDA
Principal Investigator: Majid Afshar, MD
Co: Investigator: Randall Brown, MD, PhD, DFASAM
Description: Documentation of substance use is common and occurs in 97% of provider admission notes, but their free text format renders them difficult to mine and analyze. Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning are subfields of artificial intelligence (AI) that provide a solution to analyze text data in the EHR to identify substance misuse. A version of an NLP and machine learning tool, our opioid and alcohol misuse classifiers successfully used data from clinical notes collected in the first 24 hours of admission. We aim to train and test our substance misuse classifiers in a retrospective dataset of over 35,000 hospitalizations that have been manually screened with the universal screen, AUDIT, and DAST. The top performing classifier will then be tested prospectively to externally validate its screening performance in a hospital without established screening and to test its effectiveness against usual care at a hospital with questionnaire-based substance misuse screening.
