Director
UCLA Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoids
Ziva Cooper, PhD, is the Director of the UCLA Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoids in the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior which is geared towards multidisciplinary cannabis research and education. She is also an Associate Professor in the UCLA Departments of Psychiatry and Anesthesiology. Her laboratory is dedicated to understanding both the therapeutic potential and adverse effects of cannabis and cannabinoids, the chemicals in the cannabis plant. This work requires a unique expertise managing regulations required to study cannabis, a federally illegal substance. Her current grants (>$13 million) are funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the state of California and probe the potential for cannabis constituents to reduce reliance on opioids, differences between men and women in their response to the pain-relieving effects of cannabis, effects of cannabis in older adults, and medicinal potential of cannabinoids in various patient populations. Dr. Cooper served on the National Academies of Sciences Committee on the Health Effects of Cannabis that recently published a comprehensive report of the health effects of cannabis and cannabinoids. She is the President-elect of the International Cannabinoid Research Society, a past Board Director for the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, an Associate Editor of The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, and is on several Editorial Boards of journals including Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research and Neuropsychopharmacology.
Friday, March 17, 2023
2:21 PM – 2:30 PM EST