Dr. Lorenzo Leggio is a Senior Investigator (Clinical) and Branch Chief in the NIH Intramural Research Program (IRP) with faculty appointments both at NIDA and NIAAA. He serves as Chief of the Clinical Psychoneuroendocrinology and Neuropsychopharmacology Section, a joint NIDA and NIAAA laboratory. He also serves as the NIDA Clinical Director and Deputy Scientific Director, plus other leadership roles within the NIH.. Dr. Leggio received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the Catholic University of Rome, where he also completed residency and received Board Certification in Internal Medicine. He was a postdoctoral research associate in Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University, Providence, RI. In 2010, he joined the faculty of the Brown University Medical School as Assistant Professor and Core Faculty at the Brown Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, where he still holds an adjunct appointment as Professor in Behavioral and Social Sciences. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Addiction Medicine at Johns Hopkins University and of Neuroscience at Georgetown University. Dr. Leggio, together with his team, colleagues and collaborators have pioneered and conducted work on medication development, on the role of the microbiome-gut-liver-brain axis and on the role of neuroendocrine pathways in addictive behaviors via human laboratory studies and clinical trials as well as via translational and reverse translational experimental medicine approaches.

Dr. Jennifer Barb has been a bioinformatics scientist at the NIH for over 20 years and is currently the unit head of the Data Analytics and Translational Science in the Translational Biobehavioral and Health Disparities Branch at the NIH Clinical Center.  Dr. Barb has a wide range of experience in investigating human clinical data and high-throughput gene expression analysis.  She has been studying the oral and gut microbiome of individuals with Alcohol Use Disorder and also the role of nutrition and sleep on the addiction for over 8 years.  Throughout her career at the NIH, she has collaborated with many intramural institutes including the Forsyth Institute and the Framingham Heart Study.   She has coauthored over 50 peer-reviewed publications.