Congratulations to Principal Investigators Bradley K. Taylor, PhD and Ajay D. Wasan, MD, MSc, who received funding as part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Helping to End Addiction Long-term, or the NIH HEAL Initiative.

Dr. Wasan received funding for two projects. The first, “Proof of Concept Study to Treat Negative Affect in Chronic Low Back Pain,” will address the need for better pain treatment for patients with chronic low back pain as well as mental health disorders like major depression or anxiety. The second, “University of Pittsburgh Hub and Spoke Pain Clinical Trial Network,” will enable our department to conduct more rigorous multi-site pain clinical trials with an experienced multidisciplinary team of investigators. The network will also serve as a mechanism to train younger pain clinical researchers.

Dr. Taylor’s project, “Long-term Activation of Spinal Opioid Analgesia After Inflammation,” will allow his team to continue work investigating how injury and inflammation can increase the body’s natural ability to produce pain relief and how this built-in pain relief mechanism works in the brain and spinal cord to validate a new target for chronic pain therapy.

Researchers from UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh were awarded nine grants, including Dr. Wasan’s and Dr. Taylor’s projects, totaling more than $32 million to improve prevention and treatment strategies for opioid misuse and addiction and to enhance pain management.