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Professor Nikita Gamper has success with Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks grant

Date

Nanoparticle-Based Imaging and Therapy of Chronic Pain in the Dorsal Root Ganglia (DRG)’ or PIANO

Congratulations to Marzia Malcangio (KCL) the lead of the 15 member EU consortium who together received €4,093,424. Nikita Gamper is a lead of the ESR6 (GABAergic signalling in peripheral sensory ganglia and its role in pain processing), he is also in charge of one of the workpacks (WP2).

The PIANO Network aims to develop tools to identify and visualise mechanisms of nociception in the dorsal root ganglia (DRG), outside the central nervous system (CNS). The DRG contain the cell bodies of specialised neurones that detect harmful stimuli in the periphery of the body and transmit noxious signalling to the spinal cord in the CNS.

They propose that local and targeted interventions at the level of the DRG will provide an opportunity to circumvent CNS-related side effects and optimise analgesic therapy. In models of neuropathic pain, they aim to identify the DRG involvement in noxious signalling by visualising cells or molecules in the DRG which are directly or indirectly associated with the transmission of pain.