IDENTIFYING BIOMARKERS FOR THE TREATMENT OF CHRONIC PAIN Grant uri icon

abstract

  • Opioids are not universally effective in treating chronic pain, and they relieve symptoms in only about 1/3 of patients. Yet, opioids will remain the standard for severe pain management, up and until new medications are developed and approved for clinical use that meet or exceed their analgesic power but without their severe side effects. So - what if there were a way to identify the analgesic potential of opioids in patients before they are even prescribed and thus reduce or avoid the life-threatening side-effects that have contributed to the current opioid crisis? We propose to address this urgent need by identifying biomarkers that will predict responsiveness to opioids in a rodent model. We believe that this approach can be readily translated into the clinical setting, where it will lead to a reduction in the number of opioid prescriptions while at the same time improving the outcomes of patients treated with the opioids.

date/time interval

  • January 2022 - December 2022