Norman Taylor
University of Utah, UT·Neuroscience
Chronic pain is hard to prevent and hard to treat. These projects ask why some pain lasts long after an injury, and whether an old, common drug could ease a chronic pain condition.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Pharmacology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
chronic pain
chronic postsurgical pain
fibromyalgia
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jan 2031
What they work on
- Test whether recruiting pain-boosting neurons in the rostral ventromedial medulla drives chronic postsurgical pain in consomic rats, by silencing injury-activated neurons with TRAP-targeted inhibitory DREADDs.
- Map cell-specific combinations of key signaling proteins, such as ion channels and receptors, with a high-content phenotypic screening platform, and compare them across pain-prone rat strains.
- Narrow down the chromosome 13 gene variants behind postsurgical pain-like behavior using congenic rats carrying smaller Brown Norway chromosome segments.
- Test whether 500 mg daily metformin reduces pain, mood and cognitive symptoms compared with placebo in a double-blinded randomized trial of 72 fibromyalgia patients.
- Measure white blood cell gene expression of AMPK, mTORC1 and NLRP3 by quantitative PCR, plus insulin-resistance markers, to probe how metformin may relieve fibromyalgia symptoms.
More about the research
One project uses genetically distinct rats to trace how short-term pain after surgery becomes long-lasting. The other is a small clinical trial testing whether metformin, a diabetes drug, relieves fibromyalgia.
Why it matters
Chronic postsurgical pain affects millions of patients each year, and fibromyalgia affects about 10 million Americans. This work may identify genetic or biochemical biomarkers to guide diagnosis and treatment of postsurgical pain. It also tests whether metformin, a widely used drug, could become a non-addictive fibromyalgia treatment that reduces reliance on opioids.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
David L. Mattson
Augusta University, GA·Physiology
Determine how animal-based versus grain-based dietary protein changes gut microbial metabolites such as carnitine and propionate, and whether these metabolites alter NOX2 in T cells and salt-sensitive hypertension in Dahl SS rats.
Min Du
Washington State University, WA·Physiology
Test whether maternal obesity suppresses AMPK, an energy-sensing enzyme, and thereby blocks embryonic progenitor cells from committing to a muscle fate, using single-cell omics analysis of mouse embryonic tissue.
John Archie Pollock
Duquesne University, PA·Neuroscience
Define which RNA splice isoforms of ATF3, an injury-responsive transcription factor, underlie sex differences in pain and pain relief in rat dorsal root ganglia after sciatic nerve constriction.
The school
University of Utah: 58 labs on PI Pages, $789M a year on research, 366 research doctorates a year.
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