Biography
Andrew Louden is a program director in the Education and Training Section of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program Branch within NCATS’ Division of Clinical Innovation, where he manages a portfolio of CTSA Program grants. Prior to joining NCATS, Louden served as a scientific review officer (SRO) in the Population Sciences and Epidemiology Branch at the NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR), where he ran the Behavioral Genetics and Epidemiology study section and ad hoc special emphasis panels. In this capacity, he managed the scientific review of research on the epidemiology and genetics of psychiatric disorders, psychological and mental health conditions, and alcohol and substance abuse and recovery in large human populations. Prior to joining CSR, Louden served as an extramural research program officer at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). At NIMHD, in addition to managing a diverse portfolio of grants and serving as project scientist on NIMHD-funded cooperative agreements, Louden led the Institute’s response to the opioid epidemic, which included community outreach, funding opportunity announcement development and participation in the NIH Pain Consortium. He also participated in an NIMHD effort to establish common data elements for social determinants of health to help inform effective interventions to reduce health disparities.
From 2009 to 2017, Louden was an SRO at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, where he helped set up and run the Healthcare Safety and Quality Improvement Research study section. As the SRO of this study section, he managed the scientific review of research applications related to identifying risks and hazards that lead to medical errors and threats to patient safety.
Louden received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Swarthmore College and his master’s and doctoral degrees in genetics from Howard University, where his predoctoral research focused on identifying and characterizing signal transduction pathways in tumorigenic cell lines. He completed postdoctoral research training in HIV tropism at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine before joining the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2009.
Professional Interests
Louden’s research interests include health disparities, social determinants of health, and the causes and consequences of opioid misuse.