The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

One in 13 adults in America has a drinking problem, and one in two adults is concerned about a family member who abuses alcohol. The problem is a national nightmare, but fortunately, one of America's brightest minds is attacking it from multiple sides at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA). This pioneering addiction researcher, Bankole A. Johnson, M.D., Ph.D., is known

Bankole A. Johnson, M.D., Ph.D.

for clinical studies that are redefining the treatment of alcoholism. A pharmacologist and psychiatrist, Dr. Johnson is having great success matching a solution - the known activity of medications - with the problem - abnormal brain chemistry that over time helps fuel alcohol dependence. His studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of two oral drugs that in the near future may be prescribed by physicians in addition to traditional behavioral therapy.

The William and Marguerite S. Wurzbach Distinguished Professorship supports this groundbreaking effort. In May 2003, Dr. Johnson, the Wurzbach Professor, and his team announced in The Lancet that subjects who took a daily dose of topiramate, a drug currently approved for epilepsy, and received counseling were able to reduce their drinking to a greater degree than subjects who took a placebo and received counseling alone. This finding was hailed as a "landmark discovery" by Dr. Domenic Ciraulo, professor and chairman of psychiatry at Boston University. In August 2000, the same team announced in the Journal of the American Medical Association that a daily dose of ondansetron, a drug approved for nausea in cancer patients, helped a subgroup of alcoholics known as early onset alcoholics to reduce their drinking.

"Although at present we have few pharmacologic agents to treat alcoholism, research groups such as Professor Johnson's are working hard to provide new treatment alternatives," said Raye Z. Litten, Ph.D., chief, Treatment Research Branch, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). UTHSCSA is strongly committed to this pursuit. Dr. Johnson founded the South Texas Addiction Research and Technology (START) Center, now one of the premier addiction research centers in the country, at UTHSCSA in 2001 with institutional support.

The William and Marguerite S. Wurzbach Distinguished Professorship, invested in the Long Term Fund, has a value of approximately $368,000 for the year ended August 31, 2003. This endowment helps UTHSCSA attract and keep researchers of the caliber of Dr. Johnson, who has stable grant support from the NIAAA and other agencies in his field. "Grants can be up and down," said Martin Javors, Ph.D., one of Dr. Johnson's colleagues and a noted substance abuse researcher in his own right. "Funds such as the Wurzbach endowment provide steady resources that help us to keep quality research staff over the long term, enabling us to avoid costly turnovers of personnel."