# Mentoring Clinical Investigators in Adolescent-onset Substance Use Disorders Research

> **NIH NIH K24** · UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER · 2021 · $183,254

## Abstract

The primary goals of this K24 competing renewal application are to enable Christian Hopfer,
M.D. to conduct career development activities to enhance his patient-oriented addiction
research and to provide high-quality mentorship to early-career investigators. The renewal will
enable Dr. Hopfer to have protected time to devote to career development and mentoring of
clinical researchers. Dr. Hopfer was promoted to Full Professor of Psychiatry at the University of
Colorado School of Medicine due to the success of his research, teaching, and clinical program.
Dr. Hopfer's major goals of his initial award were accomplished with obtaining and leading a
NIDA funded R25 medical student research education program, acting as the executive director
of the Developmental Psychobiology Research Group (DPRG) whose affiliated T32 program
was renewed, obtaining new research funding, and mentoring junior investigators.
Dr.Hopfers' research plan for this renewal application involves continued work as a PI on NIDA
funded research focused on understanding genetic and environmental influences on the
progression or desistance of substance use disorders among high-risk youth utilizing a joint
twin/family study design as well as understanding the impact of legal marijuana access on
psychiatric and behavioral outcomes. He plans to expand his search for biomarkers for
substance use disorders that have been previously conducted utilizing molecular genetic
approaches to now include proteomic, metabolomics, RNA-seq, and lipidomic approaches.
Dr.Hopfer mentors trainees in multiple areas of research training including: 1) Understanding
clinical aspects of substance use and abuse, 2) Twin/family and molecular approaches to
examining the etiology of substance use and correlated disorders, 3) Preparing scientific papers
and presenting findings, 4) Developing and writing successful project proposals, and 5)
conducting responsible research. He will accomplish his training mission through individual and
group mentoring and collaborating with key colleagues with expertise in biostatistics and state of
the art measurement technologies for identifying biomarkers of substance use.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10197062
- **Project number:** 5K24DA032555-09
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER
- **Principal Investigator:** Christian J Hopfer
- **Activity code:** K24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $183,254
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2013-04-01 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10197062

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10197062, Mentoring Clinical Investigators in Adolescent-onset Substance Use Disorders Research (5K24DA032555-09). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10197062. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*