BY EMILY PETRUS, NINDS, AND LAURA STEPHENSON CARTER, OD
The United States is facing a double crisis: opioid addiction and unrelieved pain. An estimated two million Americans are addicted to opioids; overdose fatality rates rose more than 20 percent in the past two years. Some 25 million Americans suffer from daily chronic pain and lack effective non-opioid treatments to manage that pain.
NIH researchers have found viruses that cause severe stomach illness—including the one infamous for widespread outbreaks on cruise ships—get transmitted among humans through membrane-cloaked “virus clusters” that exacerbate the spread and severity of disease.
Most of the NIH institutes and centers (ICs) are supporting or doing pain research. Following is a sampling intramural pain research being conducted at four ICs: National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH); National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS); National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA); and National Institute on Nursing Research (NINR).
Who would have thought that a mere $50 grant could launch a career in medical research? But that’s exactly what happened in 1954 when Harvard Medical School gave a $50 grant to Thomas Waldmann who went on to have distinguished career at NIH.
De’Broski Herbert, an associate professor of immunology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (Philadelphia), regaled a WALS audience with stories of his research on worms.
