NYU College of Dentistry launches pain center, names director

The New York University College of Dentistry in New York City has launched the NYU Pain Research Center and appointed Rajesh Khanna, PhD, as its director.

The center will focus on pain research initiatives, with an emphasis on the national opioid crisis, according to a Jan. 7 news release. 

The National Institutes of Health estimates that 100 million people in the U.S. suffer from chronic pain. More than 20 percent of patients who are prescribed opioids for chronic pain misuse them, and 8 percent to 12 percent percent of people using opioids for chronic pain develop an opioid use disorder, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. 

Dr. Khanna, who started his role Jan. 1, was a part of a team of researchers who developed a compound, dubbed 194, that could alter a sodium ion channel linked to pain, which could reduce opioid use.

He is charged with establishing the center's research directives, recruiting investigators and pain scientists, developing partnerships with corporations and pharmaceutical companies and identifying funding sources.

Dr. Khanna was also named a professor in the molecular pathobiology department at the dental school. 

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