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UNC study: cell protein suppresses pain eight times more effectively than morphine
More people suffer from pain than from heart disease, diabetes and cancer combined, but many of the drugs used to relieve suffering are not completely effective or have harmful side effects. Now researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and the University of Helsinki have discovered a new therapeutic target for pain control, one that appears to be eight times more effective at suppressing pain than morphine.
The scientists pinpointed the identity and role of a particular protein that acts in pain-sensing neurons, or nerve cells, to convert the chemical messengers that cause pain into ones that suppress it. “This protein has the potential to be a groundbreaking treatment for pain and has previously not been studied in pain-sensing neurons,” said lead study author Mark J. Zylka, Ph.D., assistant professor of cell and molecular physiology at UNC.