Seven early-career pain researchers took part in the PRF Correspondents program during the 7th International Congress on Neuropathic Pain (NeuPSIG 2019), which took place May 9-11, 2019, in London, UK. This unique science communications training program provides participants with knowledge and skills needed to communicate science effectively to a wide range of pain researchers and to patients and the broader public. In addition to blogging and writing summaries of scientific sessions, the Correspondents also conducted interviews with plenary speakers. Here, PRF Correspondent Danielle Perro, a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, UK, caught up with NeuPSIG plenary speaker Stephen Waxman shortly after the meeting for a podcast interview.
Waxman is the Bridget Flaherty Professor of Neurology, Neurobiology, and Pharmacology at Yale University, New Haven, US, and Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare, West Haven, US, and is also the founder and director of the Neuroscience and Regeneration Research Center at Yale. Waxman’s research uses tools from the “molecular revolution” to find new therapies that will promote recovery of function after injury to the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. Here he discusses his studies of rare painful diseases, which have lessons for understanding pain more broadly, advice for trainees as they develop their careers in pain research, and why he thinks it’s important to communicate research to the public. (A PDF transcript is available below the podcast recording.)
Danielle Perro is a DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, UK.
For PRF news coverage on Waxman’s recent work, see:
Pain-in-a-Dish Expands the Nav1.7 Research Menu
The Long Road to Precision Pain Medicine
Third Sodium Channel Implicated in Painful Small-Fiber Neuropathy