{"id":235118,"date":"2026-04-13T23:36:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/pain-sensing-neurons-mapped-in-unprecedented-detail-pointing-to-new-chronic-pain-drug-targets"},"modified":"2026-04-13T23:36:51","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:36:51","slug":"pain-sensing-neurons-mapped-in-unprecedented-detail-pointing-to-new-chronic-pain-drug-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/pain-sensing-neurons-mapped-in-unprecedented-detail-pointing-to-new-chronic-pain-drug-targets","title":{"rendered":"Pain-sensing neurons mapped in unprecedented detail, pointing to new chronic pain drug targets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/pain-sensing-neurons-mapped-in-unprecedented-detail-pointing-to-new-chronic-pain-drug-targets2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One in five people worldwide suffers from chronic inflammatory pain. Meanwhile, about two thirds of those affected find little relief from existing pain medications; new therapeutic approaches are urgently needed. \u201cWe first must understand precisely how sensory nerve cells trigger pain at the molecular level\u2014in other words, which proteins are involved,\u201d says Professor Gary Lewin, Group Leader of the Molecular Physiology of Somatosensory Perception lab at the Max Delbr\u00fcck Center in Berlin.<\/p>\n<p>To unravel these molecular processes, Lewin\u2014who has been studying pain for four decades and recently discovered a previously unknown ion channel involved in pain perception\u2014is working closely with systems biologist Dr. Fabian Coscia, Group Leader of the Spatial Proteomics lab at the same center. Coscia co-developed a method called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41587-022-01302-5\" target=\"_blank\">Deep Visual Proteomics<\/a> that makes it possible to determine the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2023-10-cell-proteome-context-tissue.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\" target=\"_blank\">proteome <\/a>\u2014the complete set of proteins\u2014of specific cells and to create maps detailing the spatial locations of individual proteins.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers combined this technology with electrophysiological methods from Lewin\u2019s group. This enabled them to first identify specific subtypes of pain neurons based on their function and then analyze their protein profiles. The result is a high-resolution molecular map of these nerve cells, which has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-026-71418-8\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Nature Communications<\/i>. The team also demonstrated how the technology can identify potential new drug targets to treat chronic pain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One in five people worldwide suffers from chronic inflammatory pain. Meanwhile, about two thirds of those affected find little relief from existing pain medications; new therapeutic approaches are urgently needed. \u201cWe first must understand precisely how sensory nerve cells trigger pain at the molecular level\u2014in other words, which proteins are involved,\u201d says Professor Gary Lewin, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}