The interdisciplinary faculty in the U of M Pain Consortium come from departments and colleges all across the University of Minnesota. They are working together synergistically using multi-disciplinary approaches to work toward a future where opioid addiction is no longer a public health crisis and where all people with pain receive appropriate and safe care.
PAIN MECHANISMS
Alvin Beitz: Focus on elucidating the mechanisms underlying inflammatory, ischemic, and cancer pain.
David Bereiter: Focus on peripheral and central mechanisms of craniofacial pain with particular emphasis on ocular pain and pain referred to the temporomandibular joint region.
Carolyn Fairbanks: Focus on understanding neuroplasticity of the spinal cord in order to develop new approaches to control chronic pain.
Glenn Giesler: Interest in determining the neural mechanisms responsible for conveying information about painful and itch-producing stimuli from the spinal cord to the brain.
Andrew Grande: Interest in treating cerebral vascular diseases, using either open vascular or endovascular techniques. Andrew has specific interests in treating complex aneurysms, moyamoya disease, and trigeminal neuralgia.
Alonso Guedes: DVM, PhD and board certified veterinary anesthesiologist interested in understanding how calcium and lipid signaling are involved in chronic disease biology.
Christopher Honda: Interests are centered on functional and structural mechanisms underlying touch and pain, and there is a particular emphasis in our laboratory on neuronal mechanisms contributing to the sensory experience of pain.
William Kennedy: Developing new methods to objectively diagnose, quantify and grade neuropathy of the peripheral and autonomic nervous systems.
Sergey Khasabov: Effects of the descending antinociceptive pathways from the brain on spinal processing of pain.
Iryna Khasabova: The development of pain sensitization and hyperalgesia.
Amanda Klein: Interests are in the area of the neural mechanisms of pain, specifically opiate receptors and their downstream targets to alleviate chronic pain.
Alice Larson: Focus on various aspects of pain transmission, especially that associated with musculoskeletal disorders such as fibromyalgia syndrome.
Ruby Nguyen: Studies the etiology and natural history of chronic pain in women and its uniquely gendered aspects, including social stigma and pregnancy.
Donald Nixdorf: Interests include the diagnosis and management of chronic TMD pain, headaches, and neuropathic pain
Virginia Seybold: Focused on mechanisms underlying hyperalgesia, the increased sensation of pain that is felt following tissue injury.
Donald Simone: Studying behavioral and psychophysical measures of sensation to elelctrophysiological responses of single neurons located in peripheral nerve or spinal cord.
Laura Stone: Focused on chronic low back pain, the role of epigenetics in the development and maintenance of persistent pain and in the combination of pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies to reduce pain, while minimizing undesired side-effects.
Frank Symons: Study the problem of pain among children and adults with significant cognitive impairments and associated developmental disabilities.
Lucy Vulchanova: Examining changes in sensory neurons that are induced by peripheral tissue damage and contribute to the development of persistent pain.
Martin Wessendorf: Interested in how the brainstem -- in particular, the serotonergic neurons of the lower brainstem -- controls the function of neurons in the spinal cord.
George Wilcox: Research into the spinal neurotransmission of pain and mechanisms underlying hyperalgesia, analgesia, and analgesic tolerance.
CLINICAL PAIN MANAGEMENT
Ratan Banik, MD, PhD: My research in the last 15 years has extensively used a rat model of postoperative pain following surgical incision, which includes behavioral phenotypes, peripheral nociceptor sensitization, and pharmacologic modulation.
Virginia Ghafoor, PharmD, MBA: Transformation of Hospital Pharmacist Opioid Stewardship Dr. Ghafoor is a Pharmacy Specialist in Pain Management at Fairview Pharmacy Services.
ANALGESIC THERAPEUTIC DEVELOPMENT AND DISCOVERY
Swati More: Research in Dr. More's laboratory seeks to identify, describe and solve biological problems through chemical means. A keen emphasis is placed on mechanistic probes into neurodegeneration, with diagnostic tools and therapeutic agents being the end-goals. A broad range of techniques are employed toward these ends, ranging from animal behavior studies, molecular biology, organic synthesis, rational drug design, biophysics, imaging and microscopy.
Phil Portoghese: Professor Portoghese is known internationally for designing selective opioid ligands that contributed extensively to the characterization of mu- delta- and kappa opioid receptor pharmacology and physiology. He pioneered the use of bivalent ligands to target opioid receptor heteromeric complexes. His extensive accomplishments are both impactful and highly celebrated; he was honored in 2011 for 50 years of exemplary academic service by the University of Minnesota. In 2007, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Medicinal Chemistry. Dr. Portoghese served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry from 1972 to 2012. His current program is focused on analgesic development of therapeutics based on his heteromer-targeted ligands.
Carston (Rick) Wagner: Seeks to apply the principles of organic chemistry, enzymology analytical chemistry, molecular & cellular biology, biophysics and nanotechnology to the development of new methods for drug design and delivery, chemically engineered cellular therapies and tissue engineering, specifically as it relates to new anti-cancer and antiviral therapies, as well as novel non-opioid pain medications.