Neeraj Lal, PhD, Assistant Member of the Monell Center, has been awarded the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award, which recognizes exceptionally creative early-career investigators pursuing bold research with the potential to make a major impact on biomedical and behavioral science. Dr. Lal's research with Arctic ground squirrels offers new insights for developing novel treatments for multiple chronic diseases.

Chronic pain can continue long after an initial injury. When a nerve outside the brain and spinal cord (a peripheral nerve) is damaged and does not heal properly, it keeps sending constant pain signals. Over time, this non-stop bombardment of pain signals changes how your spinal cord and brain process information through sensory and emotion-associated circuits becoming hyper-reactive, turning up the volume on pain.

Current pain treatments do not work well for everyone and can cause significant side effects. Painkillers like morphine just hide the pain, but researchers at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine have identified the underlying problem. They found that when they blocked a protein called RGS4 in the dorsal root ganglia innervating the lumbar spinal cord, in an experimental model, the nervous system returned to a calm, normal state.

University of Cincinnati emergency medicine physician Natalie Kreitzer, MD, received a $2.5 million National Institutes of Health R01 grant to lead a clinical trial testing a wellness program for family caregivers of traumatic brain injury patients.

A UMBC-led team has revealed how the common hospital pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa senses iron with a sophisticated two-protein switch that dramatically rewires its metabolism and biofilm defenses. Published in Nature Communications, the discovery led by chemist Aaron Smith and collaborators at Oklahome State University points to a promising new target for combating stubborn, antibiotic-resistant infections—and shows how student-driven research can bridge chemistry and biology to tackle real-world health threats.