Identifying New Non-Opioid Therapeutics for Pain

LSP investigators are developing novel non-opioid treatments for pain with greater long-term efficacy and lower potential for abuse.

Existing therapies for pain are often ineffective or liable to abuse, contributing to our current addiction and overdose crisis. However, developing non-opioid analgesics is one of the most challenging problems in contemporary drug discovery. An ambitious multi-institution project funded by DARPA (the Panacea Research Program) aims to develop novel small molecules and biologics for treating chronic pain and inflammation, while expanding computation-enabled methods for drug discovery platforms. Our approach is target agnostic, with screening centered on cell-based phenotypes that are indicative of nociceptor-specific silencing of channels and other proteins involved in drug sensation.

The project uses diverse cutting-edge pharmacology tools, including iPSC-derived neuronal drug screening, mass spectrometry proteomics, protein structure prediction and docking, computation-assisted synthesis planning, and advanced AI-assisted behavioral assays. Related efforts are applying similar approaches to both chemotherapy-induced and diabetic peripheral neuropathy. This program is actively recruiting medicinal chemists, chemical biologists, and neurobiologists.