The Department of Anesthesiology, in collaboration with the UMN Pain Consortium, invites you to attend the following seminars. Please contact [email protected] if you would like to meet with any of the speakers. 
 

October 6, 2021

Speaker: Dr. Katelyn E. Stadler, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Cell Biology, Neurobiology & Anatomy Medical College of Wisconsin

Title: Identification of novel chronic pain targets using sickle cell disease mice 

Description: Dr. Sadler is a preclinical researcher interested in identifying novel, non-opioid based therapies for pain management. In this talk, she will describe how she successfully utilized transgenic sickle cell disease mice to (1) identify transient receptor potential canonical 5 (TRPC5) as a new target for persistent touch pain and (2) assess how the diseased gut microbiome contributes to chronic pain development.

September 29, 2021 

Speaker: Dr. Emerson Krock, Postdoctoral Fellow, Molecular Pain Research Group, Karolinska Institutet

Title: An autoantibody and autoimmune pathogenesis of fibromyalgia

Description: Autoantibodies are increasingly being recognized as direct drivers of pain in autoimmune
diseases and in conditions that are not typically thought to be autoimmune. Dr. Krock will discuss how autoimmunity may underlie a subset of fibromyalgia and how autoantibody presence is associated with fibromyalgia severity. Fibromyalgia autoantibodies bind antigens in mouse and human dorsal root ganglia and autoantibodies targeting the dorsal root ganglia may develop via molecular mimicry with adverse gut microbiota.

September 15 - 2021 

Speaker: Dr. John Streicher, Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of Arizona College of Medicine

Title: Heat Shock Protein 90 is a Novel Opioid Receptor Signaling Regulator that can be Targeted to Improve Opioid Therapy 

Description: Opioid drugs like morphine are the gold standard for treating pain, but are limited by serious side effects like addiction. In an effort to improve opioid therapy, we’ve discovered that Heat shock protein 90 is a key opioid signaling regulator in the brain and spinal cord. We’ve identified multiple signaling mechanisms by which Hsp90 regulates opioid response, and have also identified a method to use Hsp90 isoform-selective inhibitors to boost opioid efficacy while reducing side effects.

September 8, 2021 

Speaker: Dr Bin Pan, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Cell Biology, Neurobiology & Anatomy, Medical College of Wisconsin

Title: Targeting Dorsal Root Ganglion and Medial Prefrontal Cortex to Treat Neuropathic Pain

Description: In this presentation, I will talk about cellular and molecular mechanisms of analgesic effects of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) stimulation, endocannabinoid signaling in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in the development of chronic pain and descending control of pain, and a brief introduction of my work on the role of synaptic mitochondrial function in mPFC after mild traumatic brain injury.

September 1, 2021 

Speaker: Dr. Lintao Qu, Assistant Professor, Neurosurgery Pain Research Institute, Cellular and Molecular Medicine Graduate Program, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Title: Exploring Pain Mechanisms in Rheumatoid Arthritis: The Role of Neuronal FcγRI

Description: Joint pain is a major burden for patients with rheumatoid arthritis and represents a pressing unmet medical need. This presentation is to talk about how abnormal antibody complexes trigger arthritis pain via an inflammation-independent mechanism.

2019 - 2020 Guest Speaker Series:

Andrea Hohmann, Ph.D. “Accelerating Solutions to the Opioid Epidemic by Targeting the Endocannabinoid System”

Linda and Jack Gill Chair of Neuroscience and Lilly Presidential Life Sciences Professor                      Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences                                                                                              Indiana University-Bloomington

Friday, Decemeber 13, 2019 at noon

2018 - 2019 Guest Speaker Series:

Tina Doshi, M.D., M.H.S.  "Novel Biomarkers and Pain Phenotypes in Trigeminal Neuralgia"

Assistant Professor, School of Medicine Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Division of Pain Medicine, Johns Hopkins University

Monday, August 19, 2019 at noon

Sponsored by the Division of TMD, Orofacial Pain and Dental Sleep Medicine

Greg Terman, M.D., Ph.D. "Role of Opioids in Pain Management: Clinical and Regulatory Perspectives"

Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of Washington

Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 1:30 pm

Brian L. Schmidt, D.D.S., M.D., Ph.D. "PAR2's Motley Crue: Oral Cancer Proteases in the Theatre of Pain"

Director, Bluestone Center for Clinical Research 
Professor, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, New York University

February 28, 2019 

Val J. Watts, Ph.D. "GPCR-mediated sensitization of adenylyl cyclase signaling: novel pathways and molecular probe development"

Associate Dean for Research, College of Pharmacy, Purdue University
Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology

February 27, 2019 

Zaijie Wang, Ph.D. "PKC Mechanisms Underlying Chronic Pain in Sickle Cell Disease"

Professor, Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, U of Illinois at Chicago

February 11, 2019

Ajay Yekkirala, Ph.D. "Molecular Mechanisms to Develop Pain Therapeutics"

Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Blue Therapeutics

December 3, 2018

Tony Yaksh, Ph.D. "Development of Drugs for Intrathecal Delivery: Present and Future"

Professor, Departments of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology, U of California, San Diego

October 16, 2018