Funded Projects

Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino individuals suffer a disproportionate burden of co-occurring substance use and mental illness, in part due to reduced access to culturally responsive quality healthcare, compared to other racial/ethnic groups. In addition, Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino individuals are not well represented in clinical trials that could help reduce these health disparities. This research aims to improve the recruitment of Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino individuals to participate in clinical research related to co-occurring substance use and mental illness. The project will conduct community engagement and community-based participatory research, establishing a bidirectional partnership between researchers and community members.

Many molecular gates known as ion channels control the flow of electrical signals to sensory neurons and are thus key mechanisms and targets for understanding and interrupting pain signals. Recent breakthroughs in structural and computational biology shave illuminated specific molecular shapes of ion channels, which permits the improved design and refinement of small, stable protein-like molecules (peptide antigens). These peptides can stimulate an immune response that can then be targeted with a bioengineered antibody to match the peptide antigen. This project will test bioengineered antibodies in a rat model of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy within a region of the rat spinal cord that transmits signals to and from the brain.

Effective overdose prevention requires timely, location-specific data to efficiently direct resources and interventions as well as to inform healthcare policy. However, rarely is such information available, resulting in responses that are frequently too late. This project will partner with local government agencies from Los Angeles County, California, to rapidly acquire and analyze information in near real-time from multiple sources to identify overdose hotspots and determine overdose metrics. This information will be used to develop a publicly available Rapid Overdose Surveillance Los Angeles online dashboard with built-in analytics. The dashboard will help determine the scope and specifics of overdose and opioid use in Los Angeles County to help target response and guide mobile addiction treatment and harm reduction services.

Despite the significance of spine disorders, there are few reliable methods to determine appropriate patient care and evaluate intervention effectiveness. The Back Pain Consortium Research Program
(BACPAC) is developing machine learning-based methods to obtain disease-related features from biological images. This project supports a scientist from a group underrepresented in biomedicine to expand ongoing research to improve ways to interpret medical data about spine disorders and associated pain.

Chronic pain remains a significant global heath challenge. Development of novel safe and effective treatments requires a deeper understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie the development of chronic pain. One protein that has been implicated in controlling the transition from acute to chronic pain is N-acylethanolamine acid amidase (NAAA). This project will evaluate how NAAA controls pain susceptibility after an acute insult and how this affects the emergence of chronic pain.

Clinical decision support tools help clinicians make treatment decisions based on routinely collected data and offer a promising strategy to implement evidence-based practices for safe and effective pain management. This project will use clinical decision support tools embedded into electronic health records to help healthcare providers make treatment decisions that align with opioid prescribing guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The project will also use information from prescription drug monitoring programs, insurance claims, and mortality data to evaluate patient outcomes. This research will evaluate how prescribing practices that align with CDC guidelines affect patient outcomes and whether clinical decision support tools provide an advantage over standard care practices for pain management.

Health services for the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) are fragmented in west Chicago, an epicenter for overdose deaths. This project will develop a data-driven opioid response plan involving key partners. These include local health departments, community organizations, health care systems, and people with lived experience. The research will develop a digital screening tool for OUD that can be used in hospitals and their emergency departments. The tool will be built from machine learning of data from electronic health records, the prescription drug monitoring program, and patient-reported measures. The research will test the value of the screening tool for connecting people to treatment and preventing fatal overdoses mortality in local neighborhoods.

This research is using a pragmatic clinical trial to test transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation in patients with widespread muscle pain and tenderness (fibromyalgia). The research will determine if the addition of TENS to physical therapy reduces pain, increases physical therapy adherence, and helps achieve functional goals with less medication use. This project will involve early career scientists who will gain access to pragmatic research tools as well as develop the skills needed to pursue a career in clinical pain research focused on fibromyalgia.

The Acute to Chronic Pain Signatures Program is developing a comprehensive data set that can be used to help predict which patients will recover from acute pain associated with surgery or injury and which ones will develop long-lasting chronic pain. This project will support an early career faculty member from a group underrepresented in biomedicine. The research will enhance skills development toward conducting and coordinating clinical pain research, generating omics datasets, advancing understanding of statistical methods, and other activities required for career development. 

Timely and accurate surveillance of fatal and non-fatal overdoses is necessary in light of the worsening overdose crisis, but data is rarely available in real-time. Tracking non-fatal overdoses is especially important because patients who overdose once are likely to experience additional and potentially fatal overdoses. This project aims to increase the quality and timeliness of non-fatal overdose data estimates by analyzing clinicians’ notes rather than clinical codes from emergency department and emergency medical services records. The datasets and models produced from this research will be used to build an interactive dashboard with up-to-date, county-level overdose-surveillance estimates for use by Kentucky first responders to aid in rapid allocation of resources.

Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders, which affect the joint connecting the lower jaw and the skull, are common and difficult chronic pain conditions. Pain management strategies that harness the body’s own pain relief mechanisms (including placebo effects in which pain relief cannot be attributed to a specific treatment), can reduce the severity and duration of TMJ-related chronic pain. Although research suggests that placebo effects may have a genetic basis, few, if any, genetic studies have examined this possibility in individuals with TMJ disorders. This project will use in-depth genetic, sociodemographic, clinical, and psychological data collected from adults with chronic TMJ disorders to better understand how the placebo effect works.

Rigorous and impactful clinical pain research requires participant diversity that reflects the racial/ethnic diversity of affected populations. This project will enhance patient and other community engagement, particularly of underrepresented minorities, to participate in clinical research related to the transition of acute to chronic pain.

Many medication-based and complementary/integrative interventions are available to treat chronic low back pain, yet no treatment works for all patients. This clinical research strives to understand patient characteristics that predict differential responses to chronic low back pain interventions such as acupressure. This knowledge will enable early career researchers and clinicians to develop tailored treatments for individual patients.