Tony L. Yaksh, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology
Tony Yaksh, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology
Tony L. Yaksh, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology
Research Interests
Several continuing threads characterize our NIH supported work in the Anesthesiology Research Laboratory at the University Medical Center in Hillcrest. I) Role of innate/adaptive immunity in spinal pain processing. With Dr. Maripat Corr (Rheumatology), we demonstrated and have pursued the role of toll receptors in pain encoding and down stream signaling in neurons/glia and macrophages in the dorsal root ganglia and spinal cord regulating transition from acute inflammatory to chronic neuropathic-like pain states. II) Pain Pharmacology. Our collaboration with Dr. Yury Miller (Medicine) has led to understanding of the role played by regulators of membrane TLR trafficking in the evolution of chronic pain and development of such regulators as pain therapeutics. Our work with Dr. Prashant Mali (Bioengineering) has moved to implement transfection methodologies employing CRISPR and other gene regulatory approaches to regulate pain states though changes in NaV channel expression in primary afferents. III) Pharmacology of adverse events associated with opiate actions. These include mast cell degranulation, hyperalgesia, tolerance and addiction. Our work has led to development of spinal therapeutics with an improved risk benefit profile and worked preclinically with several agents now approved for spinal use.
Selected Publications
Moreno AM, Alemán F, Catroli GF, Hunt M, Hu M, Dailamy A, Pla A, Woller SA, Palmer N, Parekh U, McDonald D, Roberts AJ, Goodwill V, Dryden I, Hevner RF, Delay L, Gonçalves Dos Santos G, Yaksh TL, Mali P. Long-lasting analgesia via targeted in situ repression of NaV1.7 in mice. Sci Transl Med. 2021 Mar 10;13(584):eaay9056. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aay9056. PMID: 33692134.
Navia-Pelaez JM, Choi SH, Dos Santos Aggum Capettini L, Xia Y, Gonen A, Agatisa-Boyle C, Delay L, Gonçalves Dos Santos G, Catroli GF, Kim J, Lu JW, Saylor B, Winkels H, Durant CP, Ghosheh Y, Beaton G, Ley K, Kufareva I, Corr M, Yaksh TL, Miller YI. Normalization of cholesterol metabolism in spinal microglia alleviates neuropathic pain. J Exp Med. 2021 Jul 5;218(7):e20202059. doi: 10.1084/jem.20202059. Epub 2021 May 10. PMID: 33970188; PMCID: PMC8111462.
Walker SM, Malkmus S, Eddinger K, Steinauer J, Roberts AJ, Shubayev VI, Grafe MR, Powell SB, Yaksh TL. Evaluation of neurotoxicity and long-term function and behavior following intrathecal 1 % 2-chloroprocaine in juvenile rats. Neurotoxicology. 2021 Nov 18;88:155-167. doi: 10.1016/j.neuro.2021.11.010. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 34801587.
Hunt MA, Lund H, Delay L, Dos Santos GG, Pham A, Kurtovic Z, Telang A, Lee A, Parvathaneni A, Kussick E, Corr M, Yaksh TL. DRGquant: A new modular AI-based pipeline for 3D analysis of the DRG. J Neurosci Methods. 2022 Apr 1;371:109497. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2022.109497. Epub 2022 Feb 16. PMID: 35181343.