Amy Hauck Newman, Ph.D. – NIDA IRP Scientific Director
Amy Hauck Newman, Ph.D., has been appointed the Scientific Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA) Intramural Research Program (IRP) in Baltimore. NIDA is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Dr. Newman has served as NIDA’s IRP Acting Scientific Director for the past two years. She is also Chief of NIDA’s Molecular Targets and Medications Discovery Branch, and Director of the NIDA IRP Medication Development Program. She has coauthored more than 300 original articles and reviews on the design, synthesis, and evaluation of central nervous system (CNS) active agents as potential treatment medications for substance use disorders, with an emphasis on selective ligands for the dopaminergic system. She is also an inventor on several licensed NIH patents.
“Dr. Newman will continue to bring tremendous strength to NIDA’s robust intramural research portfolio,” said NIDA Director Nora D. Volkow, M.D. “She has served exceptionally as our Acting Scientific Director, and her valuable work on CNS agents is bringing us closer to new and better medicines for the treatment of addiction.”
In 2019, Dr. Newman received the NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein Mentoring Award from the NIH Office of the Director. In 2018, she was honored as a “Remarkable Woman in Medicinal Chemistry” at the 255th American Chemical Society National Meeting. In 2016, she was the first woman to receive the Philip Portoghese Lectureship Award, awarded by the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, American Chemical Society. In 2014, she received the Marian W. Fischman Lectureship Award from the College on Problems of Drug Dependence.
Dr. Newman received her doctorate in medicinal chemistry from the Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University, under the mentorship of Richard Glennon, Ph.D. For her postdoctoral studies, she joined the laboratory of Kenner Rice, Ph.D., at NIH, where she conducted total opiate synthesis as a NIDA-funded NIH National Research Service Award fellow.
“As a career NIH scientist, it is indeed an honor and privilege to lead the NIDA IRP in cutting edge basic, preclinical and clinical addiction science to be translated into the prevention and treatment of substance use disorders,” said Dr. Newman.
Dr. Newman officially began her new position at the NIDA IRP on November 22, 2020.
For more information, visit to Dr. Newman’s profile page.
