Spotlight episode is Part 2 of Sodium Channels and the Making of a Field featuring Dr. Stephen Waxman Bridget Flaherty Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience and Pharmacology at Yale University. Dr. Waxman trained with J.Z. Young and Patrick Wall at University College London. He founded Yale's Neuroscience & Regeneration Research Center and has been its director since 1988. Prior to Yale, he held faculty positions at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.

Dr. Waxman has been a pioneer in unraveling the roles of sodium channels in pain signaling, as his early papers defined the ion channel architecture of nerve fibers, and demonstrated its importance for axonal conduction. Ultimately, his work has led to the development of new therapies that restore function after nervous system injury. He is now pinpointing "pain resilience" genes, and new non-addictive pain medications, based largely on his work, are in or headed toward clinical trials, and the first has achieved FDA approval. He has served on multiple editorial boards, led an international team that identified ion channel mutations as causes of pain in peripheral neuropathy, received multiple honors, and trained many lead researchers throughout the world.

The PRF Spotlight Episode 2 was produce and moderated by Drs. Isaac Gomes-Aragao DDS, MSC, PhD and Beatriz Lima Adjafre, PhD

Music by Kevin Seal of Seal Party

The first interview in the PRF Spotlight Series: Voices Shaping Pain Science features Dr. Michael Gold, PhD delving deep in to discussion of the history and future of sodium channels.

From the identification of sodium channels as drivers of nociceptor excitability to the emergence of NaVs as therapeutic targets, this conversation bridges the history of pain research with the future of mechanism-based analgesia.

Part 1 of our interviews on Sodium Channels and the Making of a Field.

Michael Gold, PhD

University of Pittsburgh

Francisco Isaac Gomes-Aragão, DDS, MSC, PhD

University of São Paulo, BR

Beatriz Lima Adjafre, PhD

University of São Paulo, Br

Music by Seal Party.

During the 2024 North American Pain School (NAPS), five pain researchers participated in the PRF-NAPS 2024 Correspondents Program. In this episode of the IASP-PRF Podcast, PRF correspondent Rima El-Sayed spoke with scientist and patient partner Alice Wagenaar-Tison, PhD candidate at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. During their wide-ranging conversation, Wagenaar detailed her experience with chronic pain, gave advice to any chronic pain patients interested in becoming a patient partner, and how you do not need to be a scientist to help design studies with patients in mind.

Podcast participants include:

• Alice Wagenaar-Tison, University of Québec at Trois-Rivières, Canada
• Rima El-Sayed, University of Toronto, Canada

Editor's note: This article is part of PRF's featured content series "Investigating Virtual Reality for Pain Management: Past, Present, and Future," which has been made possible thanks to a generous grant from the MAYDAY Fund.

Over the past two decades, the technology supporting virtual reality (VR) has significantly advanced, and its utility in healthcare settings has advanced along with it. In January 2020, Deirdre Logan and 15 other academics and clinicians, as well as industry and philanthropy partners, formed the Interdisciplinary Network on Virtual and Augmented Technologies for Pain Management (INOVATE) consortium. This group aims to advance the field of VR for pediatric chronic pain rehabilitation.

During this episode of the Pain Research Forum Podcast, IASP's Publications Manager, Renee Chasse, speaks with Dr. Deirdre Logan and fellow INOVATE member Dr. Sara Williams about their background working together in pediatric pain research, their experience with the consortium over the past 5 years, and how they envision the future of the field specific to therapeutic advances made possible by Extended Reality (XR).

Podcast participants include:

• Deirdre Logan, PhD, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Sara Williams, PhD, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California, USA
• Renee Chasse, PhD, International Association for the Study of Pain (host)

On this episode of The Pain Beat, Adam Dourson moderates a discussion about the role of the immune system in pain – what we know currently and ideas about how the immune system can be a target for new strategies to treat chronic pain.

Podcast participants include:

• Geffroy Laumet, PhD, Michigan State University, US
• Luda Diachenko, PhD, McGill University, CA
• Thiago Cunha, PhD, University of Sao Paolo, BR
• Temugin Berta, PhD, University of Cincinnati, US
• Adam Dourson, PhD, Washington University in Saint Louis, US

PRF thanks Lite Yang and Adam Dourson for producing the podcast and Kevin Seal for creating the music.

On this episode of The Pain Beat, Ewan St John Smith hosted fellow scientists and clinicians with expertise in visceral pain, including Federica La Russa - a scientist who also brought the patient perspective. The participants belong to the ADVANTAGE Consortium led by Geoff Woods, University of Cambridge, UK. The discussion covered psychological and clinical perspectives on the experience of visceral pain and treatment as well as the in latest preclinical research and how visceral pain studies differ from other types of pain.

Podcast participants include:

• Ewan St. John Smith, PhD, University of Cambridge, UK
• Franziska Denk, PhD, University College London, UK
• Federica La Russa, PhD, Freelance Science Writer
• Andrew Horne, University of Edinburgh, UK
• Amanda Williams, PhD, University College London, UK

Editor's note: During the 2023 North American Pain School (NAPS), five pain researchers participated in the PRF-NAPS 2023 Correspondents program. As we hear from our 2024 NAPS Correspondents, we're taking a look back at some highlights of NAPS 2023 and some of the people who made them possible.

In this episode of the IASP-PRF Podcast, PRF Correspondent Lindsay Ejoh spoke with Frank Porreca – a dedicated pain researcher and one of top 10 most cited pharmacologists in the world. During their conversation, Porreca detailed the process of drug development, the importance of examining sex differences in drug development research, as well as his experience at the North American Pain School.

Podcast participants include:

• Frank Porreca, PhD, University of Arizona, USA
• Lindsay Ejoh, PhD Candidate, University of Pennsylvania, USA, @neuro_melody

During the 2024 North American Pain School (NAPS), five pain researchers participated in the PRF-NAPS 2024 Correspondents Program. In this episode of the IASP-PRF Podcast, PRF Correspondent Jamie Moffa spoke with Jessica Merlin – a clinical pain researcher focusing on the intersection of chronic pain and opioid misuse/use disorder across populations and settings. During their wide-ranging conversation, Merlin detailed her nonlinear career path, her beginnings in research in chronic pain HIV patients, and her current passion of providing palliative care in addiction treatment settings.

Podcast participants include:

• Jessica Merlin, MD, PhD, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
• Jamie Moffa, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

You can also find Jamie on their science communication podcast, In Plain English.

During the 2024 North American Pain School (NAPS), five pain researchers participated in the PRF-NAPS 2024 Correspondents Program. In this episode of the IASP-PRF Podcast, PRF Correspondent Marimée Godbout-Parent spoke with Melanie Noel – a child health and wellness researcher specializing in psychological mechanisms involved in pediatric pain. During their wide-ranging conversation, Noel discussed the inspiration behind her pioneering pediatric pain research, the development of her mentorship style based on her own mentors, and leading the way for other women in pain research.

Podcast participants include:

• Melanie Noel, PhD, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada
• Marimée Godbout-Parent, BS Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Québec, Canada

During the 2024 North American Pain School (NAPS), five pain researchers participated in the PRF-NAPS 2024 Correspondents Program. In this episode of the IASP-PRF Podcast, PRF Correspondent Madelene Ho spoke with Calia Torres – a passionate pain researcher and former NAPSter. In their thought-provoking conversation, Torres discussed her academic background, her transition from the role of trainee to mentor, and her current research about economic and cultural disparities in pain care – particularly psychosocial interventions for understudied and underserved populations, including sickle-cell patient populations.

Podcast participants include:

• Calia Torres, PhD, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA
• Madelene Ho, University of Alberta, Canada