The Spanish Pain Society rewards the doctoral thesis directed by researchers from ibs.GRANADA

The Spanish Pain Society (SED) and the Grünenthal Foundation have awarded the Juan Antonio Micó Prize for Research on Pain 2023 – the category for the best doctoral theses on pain – to Mª Carmen Ruiz Cantero, doctor from the University of Granada (UGR ), in recognition of his thesis Peripheral sigma-1 receptors: at the interface between nociceptor sensitization and immune cells.

This thesis was developed in the Department of Pharmacology and the Biomedical Research Center of the UGR, and was directed by professors Enrique J. Cobos del Moral and José Manuel Baeyens Cabrera, both members of the group MP09-Neuropharmacology of Pain from the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada (ibs.GRANADA).

The work of Mari Carmen Ruiz Cantero, a student at the International Graduate School of the UGR (in the Doctorate Program in Biomedicine), focused on the study of sigma-1 receptors, a small protein expressed by neurons that process pain.

The thesis concludes that the sigma-1 receptor plays a very relevant role in the pathophysiology of chronic pain, since its blockade is capable of increasing endogenous pain relief mechanisms.

On the other hand, it is shown that the sigma-1 receptor serves as a link in the communication between sensory neurons and immune cells (the latter, in situations of chronic pain, can sensitize sensory neurons, promoting pain). Inhibition of the sigma-1 receptor can decrease this communication, calming neuronal activity and therefore reducing pain.

The results of the thesis could contribute to the discovery and development of new analgesics to more effectively treat chronic pain. Dr. Ruiz Cantero is currently a postdoctoral hire at the University of Barcelona.