Dr Viktor Lukacs receives BBSRC award

Identifying novel mechano-receptors in the sensory nervous system

Congratulations to Viktor Lukacs who has been awarded £681.8k for a project to discover the novel receptors and receptor-adjacent signalling molecules involved in detecting tactile stimuli in sensory nerves. These molecules, likely involved in the detection of mechanical pain, promise to be future molecular targets for the development of safer and more efficacious analgesic therapy. The novel genome-wide screening technology TAGS, developed in Dr Lukacs' lab, will be deployed to achieve this goal. This technique is based on in vitro cellular evolution, using the law of large numbers to screen the genome and identify the genes encoding these highly interesting protein targets.