ReachMD

President George W. Bush nominated Bertha K. Madras, PhD, in July, 2005 to serve as Deputy Director for Demand Reduction in the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the United States Senate unanimously confirmed her nomination in 2006. Dr. Madras is focused on strategies, programs, and policies aimed at reducing the demand for illicit drugs and promoting best practices for intervention and treatment. It is estimated that the vast majority of people (> 95 percent) are unaware and do not seek help for a diagnosable substance abuse/addiction disorder. During her first year in this Administration, Dr. Madras promoted implementation of screening and brief intervention procedures (SBI) in healthcare centers throughout our nation, as a public health response to reducing substance abuse and its adverse medical and social consequences. Working closely with several medical organizations, she gained strong support for SBI programs and dissemination. Simultaneously, she encouraged the American Medical Association CPT® board to approve new procedural reimbursable codes for widespread substance abuse screening and brief interventions (SBI) in healthcare settings. New codes were adopted in 2007. She has promoted effective forms of prevention and deterrence, including screening in schools, in the work place, and educating the public on science-based adverse consequences of drugs. She has been a forceful advocate of expanding treatment access, via Access to Recovery and Drug Court programs. In resonance with her background, she is a strong proponent of evidence-based treatment strategies and the publication of effective Federally-funded programs, to encourage dissemination and implementation of best practices for treatment. Prior to joining ONDCP, Dr. Madras was Professor of Psychobiology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Associate Director for Public Education in the Division on Addictions at Harvard Medical School. She created and taught courses on substance use for fourth-year Harvard Medical School students and on the Cell Biology of Addiction at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. She supervised a translational research program on how the brain responds and adapts to drugs, and developed novel brain probes and candidate therapeutic agents for substance abuse, Parkinson's disease and other brain disorders. One of her discoveries, a class of agents that images brain cells in the living brain, affected by methamphetamine and Parkinson's disease, was recently highlighted in the Better World Report as one of 25 technology transfer innovations that changed the world. She is author of more than 130 scientific manuscripts and book chapters, and recently co-edited a book on the cell biology of addiction. She is the recipient of an NIH-NIDA MERIT award, a NIDA Public Service Award, and 17 patents with her collaborators. She has served on a number of NIH committees and other advisory boards, including the Advisory Board of the Addiction Studies Institute for Journalists and the Science and Technology Advisory Committee of Brookhaven National Laboratory. For fourth-year Harvard Medical School students, she developed an elective course on substance abuse and addiction, taught in a number of continuing medical education (CME) courses, and created a course on the Cell Biology of Addiction at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. She avidly promoted the translation of scientific discoveries for the public good, by directing a NIDA-sponsored exhibit at the Museum of Science, Boston titled "Changing your Mind: Drugs in the Brain," a CD, and two-actor play. She has also delivered numerous talks on the impact of drugs and addiction to audiences ranging from high school students to lawyers and judges, nationally and in four other continents.