Nora Volkow, M.D., Receives AMA’s Nathan Davis Award

Nora Volkow, M.D., director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), is one of the recipients of the AMA’s 2020 Dr. Nathan Davis Award for Outstanding Government Service.

At NIDA, Volkow has helped to foster groundbreaking research demonstrating the neurobiological basis of addiction. She has documented changes in the dopamine system affecting frontal brain regions involved with motivation, pleasure, decision making, and judgment, which are “hijacked” by addiction.

As a public spokesperson, Volkow has also fought stigma associated with substance use disorder. This has included ensuring that physicians and other health care professionals have easy access to science-based information and clinical resources to address substance use disorder via NIDAMED, an online portal on the NIDA website.

“Dr. Volkow’s pioneering work as the nation’s leading scientist on drug addiction has already translated into effective strategies to prevent and treat substance use disorders,” said AMA Board Chair Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, M.D., M.P.H. “She has worked tirelessly to fight the stigma of substance use disorders, and thanks to her leadership, we are in a far better position today to combat complex public health emergencies like the challenging opioid crisis.”

Volkow was one of eight honorees chosen this year to receive the Dr. Nathan Davis Award for Outstanding Government Service. The award, named after the founding father of the AMA, recognizes elected and career officials in federal, state, or municipal service whose outstanding contributions have promoted the art and science of medicine and the betterment of public health.

At a ceremony during the AMA’s National Advocacy Conference in Washington, D.C., Volkow said that from an early age she had wanted to be a physician and was drawn to the challenge of understanding and treating addiction.

“I was struck by the loss that people with addiction experienced—loss of themselves, loss of their ability to make decisions, the degradation of their support networks—and by their isolation,” Volkow said. “I saw these patients in medical school and in residency and when I was an attending psychiatrist. And no one was paying attention to them. That’s when I decided I wanted to use science and knowledge to destigmatize addiction.”

Born in Mexico City, Volkow earned her medical degree from the National University of Mexico in Mexico City. She completed her residency in psychiatry at New York University. She received the International Prize from the French Institute of Health and Medical Research for her pioneering work in brain imaging and addiction science and was awarded the Carnegie Prize in Mind and Brain Science from Carnegie Mellon University. She has been named one of Time magazine’s “Top 100 People Who Shape Our World.” ■