It’s estimated that as many as one-third of Americans suffer from chronic pain, and many medications that have been developed to treat pain pose serious risks. Scientists have now created a gene therapy that can manipulate a specific channel that sodium ions move through, called NaV1.7. In tests using cells in culture and animal models, this approach successfully relieved chronic pain. The work has been reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
“Our study represents a major step forward in understanding the underlying biology of the NaV1.7 sodium ion channel, which can be harnessed to provide relief from chronic pain,” said senior study author Rajesh Khanna, director of the NYU Pain Research Center and professor of molecular pathobiology at NYU Dentistry.
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