NCCIH Research Blog

I am pleased to announce that Drs. Craig Hopp and Wen Chen, of the NCCIH Division of Extramural Research, have recently assumed new roles within the Division.

Dr. Hopp has been appointed Deputy Director of the Division, succeeding Dr. Partap Khalsa, who, after competing successfully in a nationwide search, was appointed as Director of the NCCIH Division of Extramural Activities. Dr. Hopp was formerly Acting Chief of NCCIH’s Basic and Mechanistic Research in Complementary and Integrative Health Branch, and previously served for 8 years as an NCCIH Program Director overseeing the Center’s natural products portfolio. In addition to his duties as Deputy Director, Dr. Hopp will continue to contribute to NCCIH’s programmatic activities by overseeing the administration of our Natural Product Integrity Policy, serving as NCCIH lead on large-scale projects like the Centers for Advancing Natural Products Innovation and Technology and NIH Centers for Advancing Research on Botanical and Other Natural Products (CARBON) programs, and helping to shape our research priorities.

Dr. Chen is the new Acting Chief of the Basic and Mechanistic Research Branch, overseeing NCCIH’s portfolio on the neurobiology and integrative physiology of mind-and-body programs and natural products. This portfolio includes basic and clinical mechanistic studies on an array of mind and body interventions such as acupuncture and meditation, placebo effects, and natural products (including traditional Chinese herbal medicines); mechanistic studies of complementary approaches in the context of pain management; and integration of genetic and epigenetic approaches into neurobiological and physiological studies of complementary approaches. Dr. Chen is also the Center’s lead on various NIH-wide activities, including the NIH Pain Consortium; Stimulating Peripheral Activity to Relieve Conditions (SPARC), an NIH Common Fund program; and the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative.

Please join me in welcoming Dr. Hopp and Dr. Chen to their new positions. We look forward to continuing to hear from them occasionally on this blog as well.