In 1973, in response to a growing recognition that many of the risk factors for illness and premature death involved behavioral components that biomedical treatment generally failed to address, Ovide F. Pomerleau, Ph.D., together with John Paul Brady, M.D., founded the nation's first Center for Behavioral Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The Center addressed a broad spectrum of disorders associated with pathophysiological damage, diminished quality of life, and decreased longevity but specialized in cigarette smoking and excess or problem drinking.
Dr. Pomerleau moved to the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in 1979 to pursue an opportunity to develop a program of laboratory-based biobehavioral research on nicotine and alcohol use in humans. This laboratory was the first to quantitate, at the human level, the release of beta-endorphin and other hypophyseal hormones in response to nicotine.

When Dr. Pomerleau was recruited in 1985 by John F. Greden, M.D., Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, to develop a Behavioral Medicine program at the University of Michigan, he moved his laboratory-which then consisted of himself, Cynthia S. Pomerleau, Ph.D., and one Research Assistant, supported by a single federal grant-to Ann Arbor. By 1992, the Nicotine Research Laboratory, along with the Behavioral Medicine Clinics, had expanded to occupy a substantial portion of the Riverview Building, the original home of the Behavioral Medicine Program. To accommodate its growth and provide potential for further expansion, it was relocated to Williamsburg I on the Briarwood Medical Campus.

During the Briarwood years, the research program on nicotine and tobacco continued to expand. A line of research on the genetics of smoking was launched. Dr. Maher Karam-Hage joined the team, bringing with him an interest in medications development, particularly for use in the treatment of smoking in alcoholics. With the closing of the Behavioral Medicine Clinics in 2004, the Behavioral Medicine Program was renamed the Nicotine Research Program to reflect its wider mission as well as its primary focus on smoking and tobacco research.

In July, 2004, the Nicotine Research Program moved once again, to its attractive and highly functional new quarters in Traverwood III. It currently employs around fifteen full-time and part-time staff members, including a Laboratory Coordinator, a Data Coordinator, a Data Manager, a Research Nurse, a Recruitment Coordinator/Media Specialist, and a diagnostic and counseling team, as well as Project Coordinators and Research Assistants assigned to individual projects. The Program utilizes a problem-oriented approach that encompasses clinical trials, population-based surveys, genetic epidemiology, and biobehavioral studies assessing the effects of pharmacological probes and laboratory stressors upon subjective, behavioral, psychophysiological, and biochemical measures.

The Nicotine Research Program is administratively part of the new University of Michigan Depression Center, the first such Center in the country. A $32 million dollar facility currently under construction in a location nearby and scheduled to open in 2006 will provide additional shared resources.

CLICK HERE FOR PHOTOS OF THE NICOTINE RESEARCH LAB