Literature Discussion: A novel strategy for analgesic drugs

[Anand]

In line with my interest in pain research, I wanted to share my thoughts on a recent paper in Nature from the labs of Bruce Bean and Clifford Woolf from Harvard Medical.

In the paper they describe a new analgesic strategy which is able to specifically block sodium channels in a subset of pain fibres. Utilising the fact that a nociceptor specific ion channel has a channel pore large enough to allow a sodium channel blocker through, they achieve this specificity. The behavioural effects in rats are promising in the paper and I can imagine this strategy being applied to humans once they iron out some issues.

Check out some more extensive remarks regarding the paper here. Do share your thoughts on the paper, the topic and what I have written.