Dr. Joseph R Volpicelli, MD, PhD is Director of the Volpicelli Center for Addiction Treatment and a key clinical advisor to Oar Health. Dr. Volpicelli graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Medical Scientist Training Program. Through this program, he received both his doctorate of medicine and psychology. He also completed his medical residency at the University of Pennsylvania and a fellowship in Neuropsychopharmacology.
As a world-renowned scientist-clinician, Dr. Volpicelli’s research has led to many important discoveries in addiction treatment, notably, the use of naltrexone to treat alcohol dependence. Based on his early experimental research with an animal model of alcohol drinking, he designed and conducted the first clinical trial of naltrexone in the treatment of alcohol dependence. Based on the results of this research, the FDA approved the use of naltrexone to treat alcohol dependence, the first new medication to be FDA approved for this condition in nearly 50 years. Dr. Volpicelli’s research also led to the development of a psychosocial approach designed to improve treatment engagement and retention: The BRENDA Approach.
It reduced cravings, dulled alcohol’s “buzz,” and carried no risk of addiction. By every measure, naltrexone should have immediately become a major triumph. Instead, it flopped because the institutions charged with treating addiction refused to use it. Now considered a gold standard, it survived because patients and communities kept it alive.