College of Biological Sciences

Join for the CBS Democracy Project’s Spring 2022 event! Together, we’ll watch Coming Clean, a documentary that focuses on the opioid epidemic, covering it from both a scientific and a social lens. Afterwards, we’ll discuss the film and hear from panelists.

Event Details

• All CBS community members are welcome to attend!
• Tuesday, March 22 from 6 - 8:30 p.m.
• 2-122 MCB
• Dinner will be served.
• Sign up!

About Coming Clean

The documetary weaves together captivating animation and deeply personal stories of loss and recovery in an attempt to demonstrate what's at stake as well as the history, science, and capitalistic systems that underpin it all. Watch the trailer.

While panelists for the discussion are still being finalizing we have a pharmacologist joining us who studies addition and are hoping to also have a neuroscientist and public health expert.

Panelists 

Dr. Sade Spencer

Dr. Spencer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology. Research in the Spencer Lab is motivated by understanding the mechanisms related to the development of addiction as a relapsing, remitting brain disorder in order to design and discover more effective treatments for drug addiction. Chronic drug use results in a variety of maladaptive neuroadaptations that set the stage for relapse even after protracted abstinence periods. Dr. Spencer's lab hopes that a better understanding of the trajectory of the neuroplasticity, physiology, and neurochemistry that underlie behavior will help guide these pursuits.

Dr. Charles Reznikoff

Dr. Reznikoff is an addiction medicine doctor at Hennepin Healthcare and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota. He maintains a clinical addiction medicine practice, while he is also actively involved in public advocacy and regulatory issues surrounding controlled substances at the state and federal level, including the opioid prescribing workgroup and the governor's medical cannabis task force.

About the CBS Democracy Project

Science, democracy, and the wellbeing of our communities are inextricably intertwined. As scientists, CBS students and graduates hold both a unique ability to understand scientific information, and the responsibility to understand the real-world implications of science. Through the Democracy Project, CBS strives to provide students with resources to act and engage at the intersection of these two spaces. This knowledge should be utilized to inform and influence policies, program funding, and approaches to solving problems impacting our communities. Learn more.