In 2005, Dr. Judith Feinberg was the first physician in metropolitan Cincinnati to recognize that opioid injection drug use had emerged as a health threat due to increased endocarditis admissions. She became involved in harm reduction efforts and, in 2014, after a nine-year effort, she established Ohio’s third syringe exchange and its first true syringe services program, the Cincinnati Exchange Project.

West Virginia has the highest rates of acute hepatitis B, acute hepatitis C, Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, and overdose deaths in the U.S. After a long career in HIV/AIDS, Feinberg came to WVU in late 2015 to focus on ending these opioid-related epidemics at their epicenter. As Professor of Behavioral Medicine & Psychiatry and Professor of Medicine/Infectious Diseases, she is working hard to turn the tide on the opioid-related epidemics.

Feinberg has federal funding from state and federal agencies and was recently named the first E.B. Flink Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Medicine.

Dr. Jane Liebschutz’s research is focused on developing interventions to combat the current crisis in opioid use disorders. More broadly, her research focuses on substance use, violence and mental health within the practice of general medical care.

Liebschutz has conducted numerous observation and intervention studies, including research on opioid prescribing for chronic pain in primary care. She has also directed randomized trials to study the treatment of opioid and injection drug use disorders in hospitalized patients. Liebschutz has a sustained history of funding from local, state and federal sources.

Liebschutz is a primary care doctor who also practices addiction medicine, having cared for hundreds of patients with substance use disorder. Her clinical practice has focused on underserved populations, especially those who have experienced the triad of trauma, pain and substance use.