NIH Pain Research Center: Research Stories

The stories of collaboration at the NIH Pain Research Center are inspiring. When NIH intramural researchers exchange ideas and work together, they can transform the study and treatment of chronic pain and related conditions.

One example of an innovative interdisciplinary collaboration started at the NIH Pain Research Center is the work uncovering the fundamental mechanisms underlying mechanosensation in humans and the identification of PIEZO2 as critical for the most common type of clinical pain, mechanical allodynia. Learn more about the collaboration between NIH intramural researchers Alexander Chester, Ph.D., and Carsten Bönnemann, M.D.

Under Your Skin: Molecules and Cells for Touch and Pain—What Alexander Chesler Is Discovering about the Somatosensory System (NIH Catalyst)

Another example of interdisciplinary collaboration involves the research of NCCIH postdoctoral fellow Eleni Frangos, Ph.D., who worked with a patient enrolled on an NHLBI study to receive gene therapy for sickle cell anemia. Despite being in remission from sickle cell anemia after receiving the intervention, the patient continued to experience chronic pain.

For some with chronic pain, the problem is not in their backs or knees but their brains (Washington Post, 9/23/2019)