Khalid Benamar, PhD

Title(s): Professor

Unit(s): Neuroscience, Neuro and Behavioral Health, Institute of Neuroscience, Research Faculty

Contact Info

Biography

Dr. Khalid Benamar is a professor for the Department of Neuro & Behavioral Health at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine.

Dr. Benamar previously served as an associate professor at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock Texas. He received his Ph.D. from Seville University School of Medicine, Seville, Spain. His Post-doctoral training was at Max-Plank-institute Bad Nauheim (Germany) and Temple University School of Medicine (Philadelphia, PA).

He has independent federal funding (R-series National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants), all as the Principal Investigator, which has been continuous since 2010. He is currently, the principal investigator (PI) in four NIH grants. One is the prestigious NIH Cutting-Edge Basic Research Award (CEBRA). He has a track record of peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals. He also serves as an editor and reviewer in various journals and member of many NIH study sections. He mentored and supervises over 30 students (Post-doctoral, medical students, graduate, and undergraduate).

The focus of his preclinical research is on 1) pain, 2) HIV, 3) neurobehavioral effects (e.g., dependence, tolerance, and analgesia) of drugs of abuse (e.g., opioids, cannabinoids), and 4) functional interaction between brain diseases (e.g., HIV-1, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), addiction/dependence). Currently, using behaviors, pharmacology, biotelemetry system, neuroimaging, histopathology, biochemistry, and molecular biology assays, his focus is on 1) the neurobiology of chronic pain and 2) testing the efficacy and safety of novel pharmacological combination strategies in chronic pain. Also, another focus is the functional interaction between HIV and AD. This is because a new challenge looms as individuals living with HIV infection age. There is concern that AD may become prevalent with an earlier onset of cognitive decline in people living with HIV.