Northwestern Events Calendar

Oct
18
2016

"Chasing Men on Fire: Na Channels from the Squid toward the Clinic"

When: Tuesday, October 18, 2016
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM CT

Where: Ward Building, 5-230, 303 E. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611 map it

Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students

Contact: Alexa Nash   (312) 503-4893

Group: Department of Pharmacology Seminars

Category: Lectures & Meetings

Description:

The Departments of Physiology and Pharmacology invite you to a joint guest speaker lecture presented by Stephen G. Waxman, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Waxman is the Bridget Marie Flaherty Professor of Neurology, Neurobiology, and Pharmacology and the Director of the Center for Neuroscience & Regeneration Research at Yale University School of Medicine and VA Connecticut. 

Below is an overview as decribed by Dr. Waxman:

Neuropathic pain – chronic pain due to injury to the nervous system – occurs commonly in disorders as diverse as diabetes, shingles, and traumatic nerve injury, and is often unresponsive to pharmacotherapy. Anybody who has gone to the dentist knows that local anesthetic Na channel blockers can alleviate pain, but as a result of dose-limiting CNS and cardiac side-effects, systemic administration of existing Na channel blockers usually provides only limited pain relief. This has propelled a search for “peripheral” Na channels that are essential for peripheral pain-signaling but not for CNS or cardiac function. This lecture will review the discovery of peripheral Na channel Nav1.7, its validation as a human pain target by studies on inherited pain syndromes, and the first translational studies, which are providing proof-of-concept that Nav1.7 blockade can attenuate pain in human subjects.

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