The Basic Science of Human Pain — Pain is the leading reason patients seek medical attention. Basic animal research in pain has led to enormous physiological insight but has not yet led to major therapeutic advances. A common criticism of animal pain research is that it fails to predict clinical outcomes. An important solution to solve this problem is based upon recent advances in human donor tissue access, human neuronal culturing techniques, sequencing technologies and computational biology.

Individual pain researchers in Texas are leading this effort, but an organized state-wide effort can accomplish much more. Our vision is to:

• Make human tissues important for pain, such as dorsal root ganglion (DRG) and trigeminal ganglion (TG) neurons, more widely available for research use by establishing a state-wide network through University Hospitals.
• Establish a Texas core for a broad variety of human pain-relevant tissues for human physiology and pharmacology studies.
• Use sequencing technologies to map the human DRG and TG, and potentially other tissues, transcriptomes.
• Establish data-sharing networks to rapidly disseminate this knowledge to model system researchers to refine target validation.
• Utilize unique Texas strengths in genetically tractable models to rapidly screen target genes.
• Develop academic drug discovery programs based on targets delivered from these technologies. We envision this effort creating a paradigm shift in the pain research landscape, driven by The Texas Pain Research Consortium. Importantly, this will generate substantial intellectual property and accelerate the development of Texas biotechnology pain companies.