Barbara J. Mason, Ph.D. is a Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Clinical Psychopharmacology in the Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders at The Scripps Research Institute and is an adjunct member of the faculty at the University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, and the University of California, San Diego, CA.  Dr. Mason was a member of the faculty of Cornell University Medical College (1981-1991) where she initiated a program of clinical research funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism with a focus on investigating treatment of comorbid depression and alcohol dependence.  Results of this work were published as a lead article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (1996, 275(10):761-767) and were the topic of a media briefing by the American Medical Association, as "landmark work of major public health significance."  Moving to the University of Miami School of Medicine (1991-2003), Dr. Mason developed a nationally accredited addiction psychiatry fellowship program for advanced psychiatry residents and continued her program of research on medications development for relapse prevention by initiating an investigation of nalmefene as a novel treatment of alcohol dependence.  This work was chosen by the National Institutes of Health for presentation to the US Congress as a pivotal study of 1999 and was the topic of a press release by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, with publication in the Archives of General Psychiatry (1999, 56:719-724).  Dr. Mason served as overall principal investigator for the first US study of acamprosate as a novel treatment of alcohol dependence.  This study was conducted in 21 centers across the United States.  Dr. Mason developed the research protocol and behavioral therapy materials (http://www.alcoholfree.info) for this major study involving 601 outpatients with alcohol dependence.  In seeking to further optimize the safety and efficacy of medications to treat alcohol dependence, Dr. Mason and colleagues conducted the first pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic interaction study of acamprosate and naltrexone to evaluate the safety of the combined use of these medications (Neuropsychopharmacology 2002, 27(4): 596-606).

Dr. Mason's work in medication development to prevent relapse in alcohol dependence has been recognized with a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health, the Dean's Senior Clinical Research Award from the University of Miami School of Medicine, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Teacher-Scientist Award from Cornell University Medical College.  Dr. Mason has served on the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism National Advisory Council and as a member of their Clinical and Treatment Subcommittee Initial Review Group, as an ad hoc member of the National Institutes of Health Government Performance and Results Act Review Group, as a guest expert for the Food and Drug Administration, and a consultant to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.  Dr. Mason has served as field editor for the drugs and alcohol section of Neuropsychopharmacology, as a member of the editorial boards for Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, Journal of Substance Abuse, and The Ninth and Tenth Special Reports to the US Congress on Alcohol and Health from the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.  Dr. Mason was recently given the Pearson Family Chair, a newly endowed position in alcohol and addiction research at The Scripps Research Institute, and is currently pursuing a program of NIH-funded research that includes human laboratory studies to rapidly screen potential relapse prevention medications and clinical trials to evaluate the safety and efficacy of novel medications to prevent relapse and reduce symptoms of protracted abstinence in outpatients with alcohol dependence or cannabis dependence.