With the aim of advancing nonaddictive pain management options, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $3.5 million grant to a group of researchers from the University of Florida to train postdoctoral fellows seeking to become independent clinical pain researchers.
Over the next five years, under the NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative Partnerships Across Interdisciplinary Networks (PAIN) Cohort Program, the University of Florida team will train 10 to 15 fellows from various academic disciplines in a broad national effort to strengthen the clinical pain research workforce and develop new non-opioid treatments for pain management.
“Worldwide, pain is the leading cause of disability, but we have limited effective options for its treatment,” said neuroscientist, Yenisel Cruz-Almeida, M.S.P.H., Ph.D., director of the training program called University of Florida Partnerships Across Interdisciplinary Networks: Training through Engineering, Epidemiology & Addiction Medicine. “The study of pain and treatment of pain are multidimensional. It’s complex and requires communication and collaboration from people from multiple disciplines and backgrounds.”
“This new program is focused on training the next generation of scientists who can perform research to develop novel treatments and therapies. We’ll combine the expertise of multiple fields and elevate the contributions of scientists who may not be pain researchers but can incorporate their backgrounds into pain research and treatment,” said Dr. Cruz-Almeida, an associate professor in the University of Florida colleges of Dentistry and Medicine and a McKnight Brain Institute researcher.
With mentors from fields across the University of Florida and University of Florida Health, including dentistry, medicine, nursing, physical therapy, pharmacy, engineering, epidemiology, and health education and behavior, the training program will also be led by Kyle Allen, Ph.D., associate director; Wayne McCormack, Ph.D., evaluation team lead; and Roger Fillingim, Ph.D., mentor academy lead.
The NIH grant will support five trainees at a time for two years each, with program mentors from laboratory scientists to clinical researchers from both traditional and nontraditional fields represented in the pain workforce, such as engineering, biostatistics, and anthropology.
“More than anything, this particular training program is an evolution of who the new pain scientist is moving forward,” said Dr. Allen, a University of Florida professor of biomedical engineering and McKnight Brain Institute researcher.
“It is a pain scientist who can really think across traditional academic disciplines and boundaries and integrate knowledge across neuroscience and engineering, psychology and nursing, or physical therapy and movement science,” Dr. Allen said. “No one is going to be able to integrate it all, but some well-developed teams can start to put the whole picture together.”
OTW asked Dr. Cruz-Almeida about the origins of these efforts. “By being part of the same Pain Research & Intervention Center of Excellence, Dr. Allen and I had the opportunity to share ideas and develop collaborations that led to this program.”
As for a low-hanging fruit in the pain management arena, Dr. Cruz-Almeida added, “The ‘lowest-hanging fruit’ often refers to treatments that are readily available, cost-effective, and have a high success rate for a broad range of patients. Physical therapy is an example of a low-hanging fruit. It helps patients improve mobility, strength, and function, which can significantly reduce pain levels. PT is particularly effective for musculoskeletal pain and may prevent the progression to chronic pain conditions.”
Finally, OTW asked Dr. Cruz-Almeida to provide an example of cross-disciplinary thinking in the pain management arena. “One compelling example of cross-disciplinary collaboration between engineering and neuromedicine is the development of neuromodulation devices for pain management. These devices, such as spinal cord stimulators, involve engineers and medical professionals working together to create technology that can modulate nerve activity to alleviate chronic pain.”
