Duquesne Researchers Collaborate to Study Chronic Pain
About 116 million Americans live with chronic pain. It is the most common reason to seek medical treatment and costs $600 billion annually in health care and related expenses. At any time, approximately 20 to 30 percent of U.S. residents are coping with chronic pain.
For 10 years, Dr. Jelena M. Janjic has been one of them. An assistant professor of pharmaceutics in the Mylan School of Pharmacy, she has a passionate and dedicated focus on improving therapy for chronic pain patients.
In spring 2011, after having approached a few faculty members with the idea of organizing a multidisciplinary research group focused on chronic pain, Janjic organized a meeting. She was joined by Dr. John Pollock, associate professor of biological sciences in the Bayer School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, and other faculty from the School of Pharmacy and Bayer School, who discussed research interests related to chronic pain. As a result, Duquesne’s Chronic Pain Research Consortium, led jointly by Pollock and Janjic, was established.
The consortium includes 17 faculty from the pharmacy school, the Bayer School and the Rangos School of Health Sciences, with expertise in pharmacology, medicinal chemistry, molecular imaging, animal behavior, pharmaceutics, immunology, neuroscience, neuropharmacology and neurobiology. The group focuses on the way the immune system, stress and pain systems interact for patients with cancer pain, neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia and regenerative therapies.
“It is a great range of talent, all eager to work collaboratively in a real way,” said Janjic, who studies theranostics (combining therapy and diagnostic imaging) to explore how drugs can be made more effective by being delivered to specific tissues in new imaging-supported ways. She realized that her research into cancer theranostics could also relate to the cellular and molecular mechanisms of chronic pain.
Pollock saw connections between Janjic’s and his own work in tissue engineering and regeneration therapy, particularly the interaction between the immune system and the peripheral nervous system.
Defining a research project that could involve a number of faculty resulted in being awarded an Interface Seed Grant for $100,000 from the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative. Additional funding has been provided by the Bayer School and the pharmacy school.
Pollock and Janjic will share the grant for the research project, titled Acute to Chronic Pain Transition in Postsurgical Recovery: Combined Input From the Immune System and Peripheral Nervous System. It will explore the molecular biology of nerve cells as they respond to pain (Pollock) and also nanoparticles (Janjic).
Janjic and Pollock hope this research can lead to therapies that will suppress pain and increase function for people with chronic pain. “We need to provide people who are managing and living with chronic pain more ways to reduce and eliminate pain,” Janjic said.
“This consortium has a real chance of helping to expand Duquesne’s presence in neuroscience, pain and regenerative medicine research in Pittsburgh,” added Pollock.
Additional faculty researchers currently involved in the consortium are:
- Dr. Carl Anderson, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences
- Dr. Michael Cascio, associate professor of biochemistry
- Dr. Patrick Flaherty, assistant professor of medicinal chemistry
- Dr. Vincent Giannetti, professor of pharmaceutical administration
- Dr. David Johnson, associate professor of pharmacology
- Dr. Benedict Kolber, assistant professor of biological sciences
- Dr. Rehana Leak, assistant professor of pharmacology
- Dr. Jamie McConnaha, assistant professor of pharmacy practice
- Dr. Wilson Meng, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences
- Dr. Lauren O’Donnell, assistant professor of pharmacology
- Dr. Christine O’Neil, professor of pharmacy practice
- Diane Rhodes, R.Ph, instructor of pharmaceutics
- Dr. David Somers, associate professor of physical therapy
- Dr. Christopher Surratt, professor of pharmaceutical sciences
Dr. Kimberly Szucs, assistant professor of occupational therapy.