View/Open - HPS Repository - Arizona State University

8 program profilestraining pre and postdoctoral scientistsGrass Foundation Fellowship Program“When I arrived at the MBL, I was told the experience wouldchange my life. I can honestly admit that it did,” says neuroscientistKimberlei Richardson. The experience may also help change the livesof babies who are born addicted to opiates, whom Richardson hopesto help through her research.Kimberlei Richardson,Postdoctoral Fellow, JohnsHopkins University Hospitaland MBL Grass FellowRichardson first came to the MBL in 2004, as a student in the SummerProgram in Neuroscience, Ethics, and Survival. That summer, shevisited the laboratories of two investigators supported by GrassFoundation Fellowships for postdoctoral neuroscientists, and decidedto apply for a fellowship herself. She returned to the MBL lastsummer, this time as a Grass Fellow on a serious scientific mission.Motivated by her first-hand experiences with Baltimore’s highproportion of opiate-exposed infants, Richardson set out to identifythe cellular and molecular underpinnings of neonatal opiatedependence and withdrawal. She also wanted to test her hypothesisthat a drug called clonidine might ease the babies’ withdrawalsymptoms.“While some opiate-addicted babies are born addicted to heroin,many babies are exposed to methadone, which is used to treat theirmothers’ addictions and stabilize their withdrawal symptoms,”says Richardson. But methadone is a long-acting opiate, andbabies withdrawing from it often exhibit high-pitched crying,inconsolability, increased muscle tone, tremors, vomiting, diarrhea,and, in severe cases, seizures.“The traditional treatment for reducing these symptoms in babies isa tincture of opium, a diluted form of morphine,” she says. “But theoptimal therapy is to treat them with an agent that’s non-addictive.”