Welcome to the Human Pain Genetics Lab

 

 

Persistent pain is part of many common human clinical conditions, yet the current ability to diagnose and manage these conditions is inadequate. Pain perception is one of the most complicated measurable traits, as it is an aggregate of other measurable phenotypes associated with peripheral and central nervous system dynamics, stress responsiveness, and inflammatory state. It is generally accepted that complex traits, like pain perception, result from the interplay between environmental exposures and multiple genetic variants. However, little is known about the nature of these genetic variants. Due to the established role of environmental exposures, and the common view that pain perception is an unquantifiable and subjective experience, a genetic basis for pain perception has long been questioned. Thanks to recent and rapidly developing discoveries in the field of pain genetics, there is now evidence for genetic background playing a substantial role in pain perception and clinical pain phenotypes. These findings provide unique opportunities to identify genetic variants that contribute to pain phenotypes. The development of genome-wide approaches assures global and unbiased assessment of these genetic contributions.

The Human Pain Genetics lab investigates the psychological, molecular, cellular, and genetic pathways that mediate both acute and persistent pain states. Our primary goal is to identify the critical elements of human genetic variability contributing to pain sensitivity and pathophysiological pain states that will enable individualized treatments and therapies.

Current research projects at the Human Pain Genetics lab include:

Identifying critical elements of human genetic variability contributing to pain sensitivity and pathophysiological pain states through genome-wide approaches.

Identifying SNP-dependent regulation of gene function underlying variability in human molecular pain signaling.

Identifying ways to enable individualized treatments and therapies for human pain

Team

Xiang Ao

Xiang Ao

Francesca Montagna

Francesca Montagna

Anahita Oveisi

Anahita Oveisi

Marc Bouffard

Marc Bouffard

Marc Parisien

Marc Parisien

Lorenna Oliveira Fernandes de Araujo

Lorenna Oliveira Fernandes de Araujo

Sahel Jahangiri

Sahel Jahangiri

Mohamad Karaky

Mohamad Karaky

Lucas Vasconcelos Lima

Lucas Vasconcelos Lima

Maha Zidan

Maha Zidan

Ivan Chumakov

Ivan Chumakov

Past Members

Rodrigo Benavides

Rodrigo Benavides

Maria Di Nezza

Maria Di Nezza

Richard Klares

Richard Klares

Meijuan Niu

Meijuan Niu

Julia Segal

Julia Segal

Sonali Uttam

Sonali Uttam

Katerina Zorina

Katerina Zorina

Abdul Wahab

Abdul Wahab

Stefano Cattaneo

Stefano Cattaneo

Pavel Gris

Pavel Gris

Ryan Lichtenwalter

Ryan Lichtenwalter

Lisanne Plein

Lisanne Plein

Yerkebulan Talzhanov

Yerkebulan Talzhanov

Maria Verner

Maria Verner

Khady Diagne

Khady Diagne

Anne-Julie Chabot-Doré

Anne-Julie Chabot-Doré

Hao Huang

Hao Huang

Sarah Jane Martinez

Sarah Jane Martinez

Marjo Piltonen

Marjo Piltonen

Adam Trefonides

Adam Trefonides

Xia (Shawn) Wen

Xia (Shawn) Wen

Arturo I. Machuca Parra

Arturo I. Machuca Parra

Kelly Cool

Kelly Cool

Samar Khoury

Samar Khoury

Carol Meloto

Carol Meloto

Alexander Samoshkin

Alexander Samoshkin

Nicol Tugarinov

Nicol Tugarinov

Natalie Zacchia

Natalie Zacchia

Vivek Verma

Vivek Verma