Alcohol research: past, present, and future.

Created forty years ago, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) has played a major role in the great strides made in the understanding, treatment, prevention, and public acceptance of alcohol-use disorders. Throughout most of U.S.

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism report on moderate drinking.

In support of the 2005 update of the U.S. Department of Agriculture/U.

G x E: a NIAAA workshop on gene-environment interactions.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) sponsored a May 2002 workshop on gene-environment interaction (G x E) research to identify potential roadblocks to further research and to propose solutions to those roadblocks, to optimize investigative opportunities and multidisciplinary or multi-institution collaborations, and to explore ways that NIAAA can facilitate G x E studies. Sessions included panels on animal models; phenotypes; genetic findings in humans; study designs and analytical methods; and assessment of environmental risk. Key among the identified challenges to progress in G x E research were issues of study design and sampling strategies; logistic and methodological costs and constraints; availability and understanding of data analysis techniques; potential stigmatization of study populations; and organizational/bureaucratic structures that are inadequate to address the unique needs of large-scale, multicenter, longitudinal projects.