Peripheral voltage gated sodium channels in health and disease

目前的研究计划集中在皮肤、肌肉和内脏中发现的神经，它们是引起大脑疼痛的途径的第一阶段。在之前的研究中，我们已经发现了一些关键分子(例如Nav1.7（一种钠通道蛋白），这是人类重要的止痛药靶点，通过培养失去了我们认为可能对疼痛很重要的基因的老鼠和模拟人类疾病。在这里，我们展示了如何用转基因动物杀死老鼠体内不同种类的神经细胞，并找出这些细胞的作用。通过识别特定的细胞类型，并将它们与疼痛的不同方面联系起来，我们可以找到使这些细胞发挥作用的分子，并设计出针对特定类型疼痛的其他新型止痛药。

The present research proposal focuses on nerves found in the skin muscle and viscera that are the first stage in pathways that cause pain in the brain. In previous studies we have found some key molecules (for example Nav1.7 (a sodium channel protein) that are important pain-killing drug targets in man, by generating mice that have lost genes we think may be important in pain and modelling human disease. Here we show how we can kill different sorts of nerve cells in mice using genetically modified animals and find out what the cells do. By identifying particular cell types and associating them with different aspects of pain, we can the find the molecules that make these cells function, and devise other new pain-killing drugs taht target particular types of pain.