Here’s one thing I didn’t know: For every person who goes to the doctor to be treated for chronic pain, less than a half get their pain reduced even by half. I learned that from anesthesiologist David Clark, MD, who recently received a grant from Stanford Bio-X, which supports interdisciplinary teams working on biomedical problems, to improve those odds.
One of Clark's collaborators is Scott Delp, PhD, who last spring developed a way of using light to activate and deactivate pain neurons in mice. To be clear, the nerves had to be genetically engineered to allow the light to work – not something that can currently be done in humans.
That work pointed to new ways of studying pain, but had a glitch. The light was delivered through fiber optic cables and the mice couldn’t behave normally in their cages. That’s where engineer Ada Poon, PhD, enters the picture. She’s been developing a variety of devices that work wirelessly in the body, and she's now working on a wireless device to deliver the light to nerves in mice. Here’s what I wrote in an online story yesterday:
Coupling a wireless technology to optogenetics eliminates the wire and allows a mouse to move freely, use an exercise wheel and socialize. Clark said this combination will allow researchers to design experiments that more closely mirror a patient's experience.
For example, Clark said that when he sees patients they don't necessarily complain only about the pain. They complain about not wanting to see friends, not being able to go to work, or not being able to do activities they enjoy.
"What we will be able to look at is a more natural measure of pain relief," Poon said. They could assess whether a treatment allows mice to return to normal activities by tallying time spent on an exercise wheel or socializing.
Clark went on to tell me the value of working in this team: "When you combine people with different skills you will come up with something with truly high impact."
Previously: Using light to get muscles moving and Stanford researchers demonstrate feasibility of ultra-small, wirelessly powered cardiac device
Image courtesy of Ada Poon