Drug discovery and molecular mechanisms of drug action
Neuropathic pain can be caused by an excessive nerve response to non-harmful (innocuous) touch. Dhandapani and colleagues combined a molecule that binds to the neurons and a light-activated phototoxic chemical to create a treatment that uses light (specifically near infrared light) to alleviate neuropathic pain in a mouse model. To develop this treatment, the authors … Read more
Many proteins have multiple roles. Often, the key to effective therapy is specificity. Not only does the treatment need to be specific for a particular physiological target, often a protein, but the therapeutic effects involve only a single function or subset of the target’s functions or needs to affect the target only within a specific … Read more
Unlike osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease (1). The body’s own immune system attacks the joints, causing swelling, pain, heat, redness, immobility, and tissue damage that can cause deformation (Figure 1). Because rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease, some types of immunomodulatory agents are specifically useful for treating this condition. Although both types of arthritis … Read more
Some friends recently asked me about getting stem cell injections for painful knees with osteoarthritis (Figure 1). Should they push their doctors for this treatment? Were they, and consequently their stem cells, going to be too old if they waited? I started my investigation at PubMed, searching for “stem cells” and “osteoarthritis,” which produced 1249 … Read more
Given the current opioid crisis, I have been wondering about how the situation got where it is today. As someone who lives with chronic pain due to a neuropathy resulting from abdominal surgery, I can relate to the anxiety and fear associated with knowing you will be in pain and that you need medicine to … Read more