Center's first priority will be to tackle most vexing clinical problems.

The lack of adequate treatments for pain is a problem that has plagued the practice of medicine for millennia. Only in the past few decades have scientists gained the tools they need to probe the root causes of pain and design effective treatments. Recognizing the need to marry state-of-the-art basic science pain research with clinical pain management, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine has established the Pittsburgh Center for Pain Research (PCPR) and has recruited an internationally recognized pain researcher, Gerald Gebhart, Ph.D., to head it.

The PCPR is a collaboration of the School of Medicine's departments of anesthesiology and neurobiology and the department of medicine's division of gastroenterology, hepatology and nutrition. The school envisions that the PCPR will become one of the nation’s preeminent pain research centers.

"That is clearly why I came here," said Dr. Gebhart, who began his new position May 1. "It was clear there were resources and opportunities here that are available at few other institutions. With such a strong clinical foundation already in place and an outstanding array of basic science programs, our goal is to build upon these strengths by attracting the highest quality investigators to join us and establishing a world-class pain research program."

Dr. Gebhart, who previously was professor and head of the department of pharmacology at the University of Iowa's College of Medicine, is one of the world’s foremost experts on the pharmacology and physiology of visceral pain-—the pain one feels when his or her internal organs are damaged or injured by trauma or disease. Visceral pain is one of the most common forms of pain, often caused by pancreatic cancer and tumors in the abdomen. Dr. Gebhart’s work has been instrumental in uncovering the nervous system pathways and neurotransmitter systems that communicate pain in the viscera. He also has developed and improved upon a number of animal models of visceral pain, which are used by researchers worldwide.

Dr. Gebhart said the PCPR is already in the process of recruiting at least four new pain researchers. Much of the focus of their work will be on common clinical pain syndromes, including chronic pain. "We plan to recruit people who are doing research that will help unravel some of the mysteries of a variety of chronic pain conditions, including low back pain," he added.

Indeed, according to John P. Williams, M.D., chair of the School of Medicine's department of anesthesiology, whose vision it was to create the center, a major research focus will be on the most prevalent problems that he and his colleagues face in their clinical practices, of which chronic pain is a major component.

"Anesthesiologists spend a great deal of their careers dealing with pain, either trying to block its sensation or make it more tolerable," explained Dr. Williams. "So, we want the center to focus on these vexing problems, which include a variety of other problematic pain syndromes. Our goal is to create a superb basic science enterprise to complement our already outstanding clinical pain medicine program," he explained. UPMC's Pain Medicine Program is run by Doris K. Cope, M.D.

Dr. Cope, a professor in the department of anesthesiology who oversees six pain clinics that treat more than 22,000 patients a year--the majority with chronic pain--stressed that the scope of her program's basic science capability will be significantly enhanced by the opportunity to collaborate with center scientists. "To truly benefit our patients, we really need to put clinicians and basic scientists together. We now have a vast amount of clinical experience, and the enhancement of basic science resources the PCPR will give us will allow us to make sense of what our clinical experience means. By the same token, we hope our clinical insights will inspire PCPR researchers to attempt new, cutting-edge basic science research that will ultimately benefit our patients.

David Whitcomb, M.D., chief of the department of medicine's division of gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition, also is excited about the prospects of his clinicians training and interacting with investigators at the new pain center. Dr. Whitcomb has been working for the past six years to develop the Visceral Inflammation and Pain Program and has attracted many leading neuroscientists to work on addressing visceral pain. Dr. Whitcomb and his colleagues have a particular interest in pain research because they see patients with a variety of painful digestive disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, gastro-esophageal reflux disease, chronic gastritis, chronic pancreatitis and painful cancers of the digestive organs. Dr. Gebhart's expertise in visceral pain perfectly complements and expands Dr. Whitcomb's vision for treating visceral pain.

In Jerry Gebhart, we have just recruited one of the top pain experts in the world. With his expertise and the expertise he will attract to the center, I believe this will present not only exciting opportunities for young clinicians but also contribute to cutting-edge pain research."

Susan Amara, Ph.D., the Thomas Detre Professor of Neuroscience and chair, department of neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, agreed that the PCPR will present unprecedented opportunities for clinicians and basic scientists to interact and move the field forward. "It will have a great impact on our ability to link fundamental observations on the neurobiology of pain to their relevant clinical correlates, and at the same time will help clinicians in the center to better understand the basic underlying neurobiological mechanisms of the pain syndromes they treat. Through these interactions, we believe something new and exciting will emerge."

Dr. Gebhart received his doctorate in pharmacology from the University of Iowa and has held positions at the University of Montreal and the Physiology Institute at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Dr. Gebhart joined the faculty in the department of pharmacology at the University of Iowa in 1973 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor and then to professor. Dr. Gebhart’s research has focused on mechanisms and modulation of pain.

He has received numerous awards for his work, including a five-year Bristol Myers Award for Excellence in Pain Research, a Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Frederick W.L. Kerr Award from the American Pain Society, the Kappa Delta Elizabeth Winston-Lanier Award from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons and the John J. Bonica Award from the American Society for Regional Anesthesia. In 2004, he received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Pain Society and Purdue Pharma Prize for Pain Research and recently received the Founders Award from the American Academy of Pain Medicine. He is a past president of the American Pain Society and president-elect of the International Association for the Study of Pain.

Dr. Gebhart is editor-in-chief of The Journal of Pain and chair of the editorial board of the book series Pain Research and Clinical Management. Over the course of his career, he has published more than 275 peer-reviewed papers and 50 book chapters and has served on national research advisory committees, editorial boards and committees of international scientific organizations.

The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is considered among the nation's leading medical schools, renowned for its curriculum that emphasizes both the science and humanity of medicine and its remarkable growth in National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant support, which has more than doubled since 1998. For fiscal year 2005, it ranked eighth among schools of medicine and, together with its university and hospital affiliates, ranked seventh among educational institutions, according to preliminary data. As one of the university's six Schools of the Health Sciences, the School of Medicine is the academic partner to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Their combined mission is to train tomorrow’s health care specialists and biomedical scientists, engage in groundbreaking research that will advance understanding of the causes and treatments of disease and participate in the delivery of outstanding patient care.