Marshall University School of Pharmacy assistant professor Blair (Velvet) Journigan, Ph.D., has received a research award from the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute. The two-year grant of more than $150,000 will fund Journigan’s research on neuropathic pain.
“I hope to design new chemical tools for the cold-activated channel TRPM8, part of the somatosensory nervous system, to aid in clarifying the role of this ion channel in chronic neuropathic pain,” said Journigan. “These tools may ultimately lead to non-opioid pharmacotherapies and stop a pain response in patients with chronic neuropathic pain to normal sensory events incurred in everyday life, such as light touch.”
Additionally, associate professors Daniel Brazeau, Ph.D., and Timothy Long, Ph.D., received a nearly $21,000 grant from Puritan Medical Products of Guilford, Maine. Their research, titled “Swab Collection and PurSafe Transport System for storage and stability of nucleic acids from Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus subtype A (RSV-A) and Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA),” will investigate the ability of Puritan’s new transport system for clinical samples to preserve RNA and DNA for genetic analysis.
Additional information about School of Pharmacy research is available at https://www.marshall.edu/pharmacy/research/.