Center for Compulsive Behavior and Addiction
HIV/AIDS and Substance Abuse Division

Mission Statement

It is well recognized that substance abuse is a major, debilitating co-morbidity in the HIV/AIDS population. This division will perform pre-clinical, translational, and clinical investigations to identify the cause and consequence of this co-morbidity in order to improve treatment. Towards that end, this division is committed to bring contemporary strategies and technologies to the clinic and community that suffers from substance abuse associated with HIV/AIDS.

— Jeffrey Watts, MD, division chief

Division Staff Profiles

Jeffrey D. Watts, MD
Jeffrey D. Watts, MD, is Psychiatric Coordinator for the Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center, a public HIV/AIDS clinic, in Chicago, Illinois. He has recently assumed the job of Acting Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at John. L. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County. In addition, Dr. Watts is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center. He has served as Principal Investigator in several studies examining the co-morbidity of HIV, substance dependence and other psychiatric disorders. He has been a Speaker for the American Psychiatry Association since 2003, was presented with the Advocate of the Year Award from the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago in 2005. Dr. Watts has been an active presenter regarding HIV/AIDS and psychiatry throughout the Midwest and a teacher of neuro-psychiatric aspects of HIV/AIDS to psychiatry residency training programs across the United States. His extensive knowledge of the HIV/AIDS community and their co-morbidities make his expertise a vital resource for our HIV/AIDS and Substance Abuse Division.

Audrey French, MD
Audrey French, MD, serves in many capacities. She is Associate Professor of Medicine/Infectious Diseases; she is Clinical Research Chair of the Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center and serves as Chair of the Cook County Bureau of Health Services Institutional Review Board. She is the Co-Principal Investigator of the Chicago Women’s Interagency HIV Study funded by NIAID, NIDA and NCI and serves as the Chair nationally of the WIHS Epidemiology Working Group and Co-Chair of the Hepatology Working Group. She has published extensively in journals and books mostly focusing on immunology and in particular, HIV and AIDS. Her specialization and access to a population we hope to study, both at the CORE Center and Stroger Hospital will provide an additional resource as we develop new and more effective treatments for addictions and compulsive behaviors.

Alan Landay, PhD
Alan Landay, PhD, is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Immunology/Microbiology and Professor of Medicine at Rush University Medical Center. The focus of his research and his many published articles has been on the immunology and in particular, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, from the molecular perspective. He is currently a member of the Review Panel for the California AIDS Task Force and has served on several scientific and foundation boards, both nationally and internationally, focusing on AIDS Immune Research. Dr. Landay has also served as Principal Investigator on a number of studies focusing on the pathogenesis of the HIV disease. His knowledge of the illness at its very basic level should prove useful in understanding the brain’s functioning in addiction, and provide new insights and discovery as we strive to treat patients with addiction, in particular those in the underserved populations.

Xiu-Ti Hu, MD, PhD
Xiu-Ti Hu, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Rush University Medical Center and serves as a researcher in both the HIV-AIDS and Mental Health Divisions of the Center for Compulsive Behaviors and Addiction. Dr. Hu is a NIDA-funded expert in the patho-physiology of addictions, specifically in using electrophysiological and neuro-pharmacological approaches to study ion channel function of neurons in the brain of rodent models of human addiction. He has published extensively on these topics and served as Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-PI on studies examining neuro-adaptations of the brain in response to chronic exposure to amphetamine and cocaine. He also brings to the Center an extensive knowledge of neurochemistry involved in chemical dependency. 

Kathleen Weber
Kathleen Weber is currently the Project Director of the Chicago Consortium Women’s HIV Study, a NIH funded multi-center longitudinal cohort study of HIV in women currently in its 16th year. The CORE Center/Stroger Hospital site is the lead institution with additional clinical sites located at Rush Medical Center, University of Illinois, and Northwestern University.  Kathleen is an active member of the National WIHS Behavioral, Neurocognitive, Cardiovascular, and Metabolic Working Groups.  She also has extensive experience as a clinical and research nurse in a variety of settings including medical and surgical intensive care and psychiatric units, cardiovascular labs, rehab, and various outpatient clinical research settings primarily focusing on HIV disease.   She has worked as a Clinical Research Associate for both the NIAID funded Adult and Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trails Groups. Kathleen has additional training as a neuromuscular therapist, bio/neurofeedback practitioner, and has studied various forms of Eastern Medicine in China.

Glenn Stebbins, PhD
Glenn Stebbins, PhD, is an Associate Professor and Affiliated Scientist, Department of Neurological Sciences, at Rush University Medical Center. He also serves as Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and the University Of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Stebbins has published extensively on better understanding various neurological diseases including Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease and he has served as Investigator and Co-Investigator on a number of studies, many of them focusing on Alzheimer’s disease and the effects of aging on the cognitive process. He is a member of and serves on the boards of many professional organizations. His expertise in the field of the neurological sciences should provide another perspective in understanding how the brain functions in addictions and compulsive behaviors. 

Karen A. Kroc
Karen Kroc currently serves as Associate Director of Research at the Ruth M. Rothstein CORE Center in Chicago. Her professional background has focused on public health issues and infectious diseases, in particular, Human Immunodeficiency Virus. She is currently Project Coordinator of two studies: One that is examining how to maximize the availability of rapid HIV testing to populations disproportionately affected by HIV, primarily African Americans. Her other ongoing research explores the feasibility and outcome of providing HIV testing to patients in the emergency room prior to hospitalization to medicine service and redirecting HIV-infected patients to the hospital ID/HIV service. She has co-authored several articles on HIV testing and public health topics.

Steven M. Graves, Doctoral Graduate Student
Steven Graves is currently a doctoral student in Pharmacology at Rush University Medical Center. He has published abstracts focusing on brain functioning and conditioned addiction in laboratory rats and has manuscripts in preparation. Steven has recently received a NIH/NRSA grant to study drug addiction with an emphasis on serotonin and therapeutic strategies of relapse prevention.

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