Neural Circuits and Mechanisms Underlying Chronic Pain

Decoding the Spinal Cord's Role in Pain: From Molecules to Therapeutics

Pain affects millions worldwide, yet effective treatments remain elusive. Our laboratory tackles this challenge by investigating how the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, the body's first relay station for pain signals, generates and sustains both acute and chronic pain states.

What Makes Our Approach Unique

Critically we are focused identifying functional pain circuits across species, from mice to monkeys to humans. Using state-of-the-art multiomics, spatial transcriptomics, and gene regulatory network analyses, we are generating a comprehensive functional map of the spinal dorsal horn pain circuits. Decoding fundamentally conserved chronic pain circuits is enabling the identification of targeted therapeutic interventions.

Current Research Directions

From Discovery to Manipulation: Testing Causal Roles in Chronic Pain
To do this, we are using advanced chemogenetic tools and viral tracing strategies in mice and non-human primates to directly test whether specific neuron subtypes drive chronic pain states across species. Can silencing or activating a particular cell population reverse pain hypersensitivity?

Mapping Injury-Induced Protein Changes in Pain-Critical Neurons
Additionally, we are interested in understanding what molecular transformations occur within the specific neuron subtypes we've identified after injury. We're using targeted proteomic approaches to capture the protein-level changes that may underlie chronic pain and causally contribute to the transition from acute to chronic pain within the defined cross species neuron subtypes.

Our Mission: Bench to Bedside

Every experiment is guided by our desire to bring novel spinal neuron-targeted therapeutics to patients. Our overall plan is to build a translational pipeline designed to overcome the historical challenge of translating work in tractable systems like rodent models to effective therapies in humans.

Science thrives on collaboration. We work closely with leading laboratories including Andreas Pfenning's group at Carnegie Mellon University, and David Schaeffer's and Holden Ko's laboratories at the University of Pittsburgh. These synergistic partnerships bring together expertise in computational genomics, systems neuroscience, and translational medicine.

Benefits of Joining our Group

• Work at the intersection of molecular biology, systems neuroscience, and translational medicine.

• Learn cutting-edge techniques in multiomics, chemogenetics, and comparative neuroscience.

• Contribute to research with direct clinical impact.

• Collaborate across disciplines and institutions

If you're passionate about solving chronic pain, one of medicine's most pressing challenges, while working at the forefront of neuroscience, we want to hear from you.