The Tobacco Neuroscience Research Laboratory (TNRL) in the Duke Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences has been selected as a 2005 site for the National Institute on Drug Abuse Summer Research Program for Underrepresented Minority Students.

Clinical psychologist Joseph McClernon, Ph.D., is director of the independent laboratory affiliated with the new Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research (CNSCR).

Every year the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) selects a number of laboratories around the country that are on the cutting edge of drug research and works to match those labs with accomplished young adults for a summer research experience. It matches the students and then provides them a stipend and an allowance for transportation and housing during the summer.

This year NIDA chose two rising seniors from North Carolina to work at Duke in the field of nicotine addiction. They are Mitchell Burley, an East Carolina University neuroscience/psychology double major, and Melissa Latorre, a premed and biomedical engineering major at Duke.

“I’m really pleased to work with Mitchell and Melissa,” says McClernon. “It’s been a fantastic experience for our lab and the center, and these two have done some excellent work. The NIDA program is great for enhancing diversity -- in our lab and in the broader field going forward.”

NIDA selects numerous sites around the country for this summer program, but this year the TNRL is the only lab participating at Duke University.