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Join us to welcome special guest: Clifford Woolf, PhD. Director of F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center at Harvard University.

Dr. Woolf will be presenting the annual Julius B. Khan Jr. Guest Lecture: Towards conquering pain.

Abstract: The major challenges for developing effective analgesics are how to identify compounds with a pain-selective inhibitory activity profile on human neurons and how to measure their efficacy and safety. We have adapted two approaches to deal with these problems. First, we have established a differentiation protocol for efficiently generating human nociceptors from iPSCs and are using these to run high content cell-selective and disease selective phenotypic assays. Second, we have built a machine vision and machine learning platform that enables us to measure “the body language of pain” in freely moving mice without an observer and are exploiting this to measure analgesia as well as adverse effects. These approaches offer the possibility of developing new therapeutic strategies.  

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Lecture to take place in Simpson Querrey Auditorium, reception to follow in the Potocsnak Family Atrium (SQ Lobby). 

Clifford J. Woolf, PhD
Professor of Neurology
Director of F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center  
Harvard University

Harvard Stem Cell Institute | Boston Children’s Hospital | Woolf Lab