Nepal RPCV Craig W. Stevens who studies frogs, chickens and alligators for clues on how the human brain’s pain receptors react to opiates, like morphine, recently received his eighth consecutive grant from the National Institutes of Health
OSU professor receives grant
Claire Sonnichsen
Staff Writer
An Oklahoma State University researcher who studies frogs, chickens and alligators for clues on how the human brain’s pain receptors react to opiates, like morphine, recently received his eighth consecutive grant from the National Institutes of Health.
According to a press release from the Center of Health Sciences, Craig W. Stevens, professor of pharmacology at OSU’s CHS, received a “two-year $144,100 grant (entitled) ‘Functional evolution of opioid receptors.’”
To date, Stevens’ group has received over $1.4 million in grants from a variety of sources.
Stevens said he uses a relatively new technique called bioinformatics to identify those molecular structures common to many species and to find the ones that allow a certain drug to numb pain.
The bioinformatics method can help researchers predict in advance which drugs will work, said Stevens.
“We hope this is a really good method of drug discovery,” Stevens said.
“The old way was just to make millions of molecules to see which ones fit. This way, we let evolution tell us what’s important.”
Stevens’ approach could also help scientists develop drugs that target only those areas of the body that need medication, thus reducing those side effects common to many opiates.
Stevens said one of opiates’ worst side effects is respiratory depression, which is the cause of death in the case of a heroin overdose, for example.
Stevens first studied opiates while doing research for his doctoral studies at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. At that time, his target organisms were the more traditional mammals, Stevens said. When he came to OSU, Stevens said, he didn’t want to use mammals for research anymore.
“I guess it could have something to do with serving in the Peace Corps,” Stevens said. Stevens served as a science and math instructor in Nepal from 1978 to 1981, according to his curriculum vitae, available at the CHS Web site, http://www.healthsciences.okstate.edu.
Stevens also belongs to a group called the Scientists Center for Animal Welfare.
Even given the nature of Stevens’ research, NIH grants are relatively hard to come by. Only 34.5 percent of grant applications received in 2002 were funded, according to the NIH Web site, http://www.nih.gov, and this number has remained fairly constant since the late 1990s. In 2002, these grants amounted to nearly $4.8 billion in government funding for research.
The NIH, located in Bethesda, Md., “is one of eight health agencies of the Public Health Service which, in turn, is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,” according to the organization’s Web site
NIH grants are in high demand because in addition to the money for “direct costs” given to the researcher, the researcher’s institution also receives roughly half the total given to the researcher to cover “indirect costs,” such as salaries, Stevens said.
“(At the NIH), grants are reviewed by a study session made up of your peers,” Stevens said. “So it’s a really pure system, in that other scientists decide who gets the money (instead of the government).”
“They ask, (does the research investigate) a good scientific issue? Does it answer good questions?” said Stevens.
Stevens said he has wanted to be a scientist since he was eight years old. “But I didn’t realize when I was eight that I’d have to write grants to get the money for the research.”
