Badcock Dental Circle Lecture
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This year’s Badcock Dental Circle Lecture was held on 1 June in New Hunt’s House, Guy’s Campus. Professor Ken Hargreaves from the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio was invited to give the lecture.Professor Ken Hargreaves is a practising Endodontist and pharmacologist whose reputation precedes him as a distinguished clinical scientist leading research into human pain mechanisms.
During his lecture, titled ‘Modulation of TRPV1 Activity in Pain: Potential Targets for New Analgesics', Professor Ken Hargreaves reported on a series of simple but eloquent experiments that demonstrate a new target for analgesics (OLAMs) that are essential for activation of the vanilloid pain receptor TRPV1. In vivo these molecules cause mechanical and thermal allodynia in tissues similar to the clinical picture seen in late pulpitis.
There are no reported antagonists for these molecules, however, an ancient American Indian remedy for pain has been found to inhibit their effect and reduce pain in vivo. This ground setting translational work will no doubt contribute to novel analgesic development for pain.
Professor Hargreaves joined the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 1997, as professor and Chair of the Department of Endodontics. He was trained by Ron Dubner in pain over five years at the Pain Clinic of the NIDCR and has been awarded two IADR Distinguished Scientist Awards (for Pulp Biology in 1999 and Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics in 2000) and the Louis I. Grossman Award from the AAE.
Posted on 8 June 2010
There are no reported antagonists for these molecules, however, an ancient American Indian remedy for pain has been found to inhibit their effect and reduce pain in vivo. This ground setting translational work will no doubt contribute to novel analgesic development for pain.
Professor Hargreaves joined the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in 1997, as professor and Chair of the Department of Endodontics. He was trained by Ron Dubner in pain over five years at the Pain Clinic of the NIDCR and has been awarded two IADR Distinguished Scientist Awards (for Pulp Biology in 1999 and Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics in 2000) and the Louis I. Grossman Award from the AAE.
Posted on 8 June 2010