Wellcome Leap – Untangling Addiction Program

Wellcome Leap's Untangling Addiction initiative seeks to address the critical gap in the understanding and treatment of substance use disorders.

Wellcome Leap considers that a new approach is needed that measures and characterises the underlying neural and physiological factors that are affected and altered by addiction, and incorporates that understanding into the treatment and tracking of recovery.

A primary objective of this funding initiative is to identify biomarkers that can be detected through non-invasive or minimally invasive methods (e.g. blood tests, somatosensory evoked potentials etc) to facilitate quantitative assessment of the fundamental changes and neurobiological underpinnings of drug abuse and, ultimately, to demonstrate increased efficacy of prevention and treatment approaches using these quantitative methods.

Proposals are required for work in one or more of the following thrust areas:

• Thrust Area 1: Comprehensive neurobiological and behavioural measurement, and modelling of addiction risk and recovery.
   
• Thrust Area 2: Validation and optimisation of neurobiological biomarkers for SUD and AUD.
   
• Thrust Area 3: Longitudinal studies of prescription opioid use, addiction risk trajectories and prevention strategies.
   
• Thrust Area 4: Retrospective analysis of broad existing datasets for addiction risk.
   
• Thrust Area 5: Novel interventions.

• More information about the program is available here and the full program description is available here.
• The application portal can be found will open on 14 December, here.