John Archie Pollock
Duquesne University, PA·Neuroscience
After a nerve injury, nerves can stay oversensitive long after the injury heals, which can turn short-term pain into chronic pain. Some patients turn to opioids for relief and risk opioid use disorder.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Genetics
Biology
- Topics
neuropathic pain
chronic pain
dorsal root ganglia
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2028
What they work on
- 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.
- Map cell-specific expression of Atf3 splice variants in neurons, glia and infiltrating immune cells during pain, celecoxib-nanodroplet relief and tissue regeneration, using multi-color single-molecule fluorescent in situ hybridization with exon-specific probes.
- Examine the cellular expression of other sexually dimorphic candidate genes, including the transcription factors Fos and Nr1d1 and the dynamin-like GTPase MX1, in male and female rats during pain and relief.
- Build a model of how ATF3 isoforms take part in molecular signaling during neuroinflammation and pain relief, while training teams of undergraduate research scholars in pain research.
More about the research
Pain also behaves differently in males and females. This project asks which genes drive those sex differences in pain and in pain relief, inside the dorsal root ganglia (DRG). The DRG are clusters of sensory nerve cells next to the spinal cord, where neurons, glia (support cells) and immune cells interact.
Why it matters
Chronic pain causes widespread suffering, and poor relief can lead patients toward opioids and opioid use disorder. Identifying which genes and RNA variants explain why males and females respond differently to an anti-inflammatory pain treatment could point to better-tailored therapies. Several candidate genes belong to the druggable proteome, meaning they are the kinds of proteins drugs can target.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Bin Pan
University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, TX·Neuroscience
Establish whether CaMKII activity in peripheral sensory neurons suppresses pain, testing the hypothesis that reduced CaMKII signaling in dorsal root ganglion neurons maintains chronic pain in preclinical neuropathic and osteoarthritic pain models.
Sylvia Suadicani
Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY·Neuroscience
Test whether bladder or colon injury enhances signaling between dorsal root ganglia (DRG) sensory neurons and their wrapping satellite glial cells, using established mouse models of direct bladder and colon insult with behavioral, functional and molecular measures.
Anne-Marie Malfait
Rush University, IL·Neuroscience
Map nerve fibers and gene activity in skin from classic Ehlers-Danlos syndrome patients versus controls, using tissue staining and Visium spatial transcriptomics, which measures gene activity across tissue slices.
The school
Duquesne University: 3 labs on PI Pages, $18M a year on research, 90 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.