NIHs, National Centre for Complementary and Integrative Health has awarded a five-year U24 grant of ~$5 million to create a Sickle Cell Disease Pain Analgesia and Integrative Network (SCDPAIN), an innovative, dynamic platform aimed at advancing research on pain mechanisms in sickle cell disease (SCD). Pain in SCD is unique due to its unpredictable and recurrent episodes of acute pain, in addition to chronic pain affecting the majority of individuals with SCD. In the United States, SCD primarily impacts African Americans and some Latino Americans.
This nationwide network (with global outreach) will profoundly influence the science of sickle cell pain through cutting-edge technological advancements and three major goals:
1) “Science without borders”
2) “Promoting the future”
3) “Hub to health.”
To achieve these goals, it will:
1) Build multidisciplinary research capacity to meet critical unmet needs of SCD pain
2) Incentivize novel initiatives through pilot funds
3) Catalyze the next generation of scientists to accelerate SCD pain research
This multi-PI U24 grant is led by Principal Investigator Kalpna Gupta, PhD, Professor of Medicine at the School of Medicine; Susan Samueli Scholar at the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute (SSIHI); and Professor at the School of Pharmacy at UCI. Gupta is a member of CNCM, with collaborative advancement for neural circuit mapping provided by Dr. Xiangmin Xu. Dr. Richard Harris from SSIHI, UCI, is a co-investigator on this grant.