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Platform to screen drug candidates for pain

Technology Benefits

Using rats as animal models helps to screen potential new pain-control drugs. Dr. Bennett is interested in working with pharmaceutical companies to design, conduct, and interpret clinical trials to investigate the efficacy of the drugs. Several successful collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotech companies have been completed over the last years (screening drug candidates). These successful collaborations are a clear evidence of the expertise developed by Dr. Bennett and its utility for the pharmaceutical and biotech industry.

Technology Application

Uncontrolled pain disrupts sleep, wears the sufferer down, and erodes the quality of life. This type of pain is the single most common cause of disability. It drives people to doctors and hospitals but gets a disproportionate amount of consideration from the medical community. Managing or relieving pain gets little attention in most medical school curriculums. Up to 33 percent of the population suffers from chronic pain, a condition that particularly affects seniors. The number will grow as the population ages. One U.S. survey suggests that chronic pain cost the American economy 550 million lost working days each year-a major economic impact.

Detailed Technology Description

Painful peripheral neuropathies are chronic conditions that arise when nerves are damaged by trauma, disease, metabolic insufficiency, and by certain drugs and toxins. Examples include painful diabetic neuropathy, postherpetic neuralgia, post-traumatic neuropathies, and the painful peripheral neuropathy caused by drugs used to treat cancer. Unlike other forms of chronic pain, neuropathic pain responds poorly or not at all to the standard analgesic drugs and thus it leads to great suffering, major disability and extensive health care utilization.

*Abstract

*Background

Dr. Bennett’s laboratory is investigating treatments for, and the causes of, inflammatory pain hypersensitivity states in rats. This research includes investigating the painful peripheral neuropathy caused by chemotherapeutic drugs. Dr. Bennett's research involves efforts to understand the neural mechanisms that cause chronic pain in people whose nerves are damaged by trauma, disease, metabolic problems, as well as certain drugs and toxins. This kind of pain can follow attacks of shingles, diabetic neuropathy, amputation, thoracotomy (a surgical incision of the chest wall), and pain caused by drugs used to treat cancer and HIV. Unlike other kinds of chronic pain, aspirin- and morphine-like drugs relieve it very poorly, or not at all.

Country/Region

USA