People

2019

2015

Faculty
	Greg Dussor Gregory (Greg) Dussor received his PhD in Pharmacology at The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio in 2002. He studied under the mentorship of Drs. Chris Flores and Ken Hargreaves where he worked on the modulation of peripheral nociceptors in the trigeminal system by cholinergic receptors. Following his PhD studies, he did postdoctoral training from 2004-2007 in the laboratory of Dr. Ed McCleskey at the Vollum Institute on the campus of The Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. There, he worked on biophysical properties of acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs) and also characterized the ion channel expression on a population of sensory neurons that innervate the outer epidermis. In 2007, he joined the Faculty in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Arizona in Tucson. While in Arizona, he shifted the focus of his laboratory to understanding the pathophysiology contributing to chronic headache disorders such as migraine. He remained on faculty there until joining the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 2014. Greg was a recipient of a Future Leaders in Pain Research Award from the American Pain Society, he has received funding from the NIH, the American Pain Society, the National Headache Foundation, and the Migraine Research Foundation, he is on the Editorial Board for the journal PAIN, and he regularly serves as a study section member at NIH/CSR. View publications on PubMed View publications on Google Scholar
	Ted Price Theodore (Ted) Price returned to the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at UTD as an Associate Professor in 2014. He graduated from UTD in 1998 with a B.S. in Neuroscience where he worked with Dr. Alice O'Toole on human face perception. He then received his PhD in 2003 from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio under the mentorship of Christopher Flores and Kenneth Hargreaves where he worked on cannabinoid pharmacology and pain. He was then a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Fernando Cervero at McGill University until 2007 where he developed the first studies on how local control of protein synthesis in neurons is involved in the development of chronic pain disorders. He was a faculty member of The University of Arizona School of Medicine from 2007-2014 where he further developed work on nervous system plasticity in relation to pain with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) - Rita Allen Foundation - and Migraine Research Foundation. Dr. Price is the recipient of Young Investigator Awards from the American Pain Society and International Association for the Study of Pain, has published more than 70 peer-reviewed articles in international journals, serves as the pharmacology section editor for European Journal of Pain and is on the editorial board for Pain, Molecular Pain and The European Journal of Neuroscience. He is also a regular reviewer for National Institutes of Health and American Pain Society study sections. View publications on PubMed View publications on Google Scholar
Lab Manager
	Galo Mejia My childhood was spent in the frozen tundra of Cleveland, OH watching the Cavs at the Gund Area, the Indians at Jacobs Field, and the Browns from the safety of my couch. My adolescent years were spent in Mesa, AZ until I enrolled at The University of Arizona in Tucson to pursue my B.S in Microbiology. It was there that I was first introduced to Dr. Theodore Price and Dr. Gregory Dussor during my freshmen year. Their pharmacological work on chronic pain captivated my sophomoric scientific mind and I immediately began working in their lab. As an undergraduate worker, I had the opportunity to collaborate with many great scientists and had my work published in the Journal of Pain and Neuroscience letters. Upon completion of my B.S. degree in 2013, I joined their lab as a technician. In 2014 I moved to The University of Texas at Dallas where I now manage the day-to-day operations of The Pain Neurobiology Research Group. I am also currently working on P-body modulation with AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activators. In my free time I enjoy cooking and traveling.
Post-Doctoral / Research Scientists
	Daniela Baptista-de-Souza Daniela obtained her B Pharm and Ph D in Physiological Sciences from the Federal University of Sao Carlos. She presently works with Ted Price on mechanisms of chronic pain.
	Paulino Barragán-Iglesias Paulino obtained his MSc (2010) and PhD (2014) degrees in Neuropharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics from the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (Cinvestav-IPN) in Mexico City. He studies translation control of gene expression involved in nociceptor plasticity during chronic pain conditions. View publications on Google Scholar.
	Shayne Hassler Shayne Hassler is a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratories of Ted Price and Greg Dussor in the Brain and Behavioral Sciences department at University of Texas at Dallas. Prior to this position, he earned his doctorate from the University of Texas Medical Branch by investigating how reactive oxygen species contributes to chronic neuropathic pain in spinal cord injured rats. He is currently studying how protease activated receptors (PARs) contribute to pathological nociception in a novel mouse migraine model. Shayne Hassler has attended and presented his pain research at Society for Neuroscience, National Neurotrauma Society, the American Pain Society, and Mission Connect. Shayne hopes to continue investigating pain neurobiology and successfully transition into an academic faculty position.
	Bianca Mason Bianca obtained her bachelors in Biology from Savannah State University, and her Ph D in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Iowa. She is presently a post-doctoral scientist working with Greg Dussor on the mechanisms on migraine.
	Pradipta Ray Pradipta Ray is a computer scientist and regulatory genomicist who works on bayesian models of next generation sequencing data. He finished his PhD at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University in 2010, and is a Research Scientist at The University of Texas at Dallas. He works on computational aspects of regulatory genomics, identifying patterns of transcriptional, post-transcriptional and translational regulation using probabilistic inference and machine learning approaches. Pradipta works on comparative transcriptomics of pain in human beings and pain models in rodents, mining sensory tissues like sensory ganglia and dura mater transcriptomes for potential drug targets. He also performs disease transcriptomics on human RNA profiles from chronic pain associated DRGs, to better understand the pathology and potential therapies. View Pradipta's website for more details on his research View publications on Google Scholar
	Diana Tavares-Ferreira Diana is originally from Portugal and graduated with a PharmD/MS in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Coimbra in 2013. Then, she moved to UK, where she completed her PhD in pain neuroscience at the University of Sheffield studying the role of resolvin receptors and microRNA following nerve injury. During her PhD studies, Diana spent 6 months at Eli Lilly Research, UK as a visiting scientist and received training in computational analysis. Diana is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Dr Price's lab at the University of Texas at Dallas; and is investigating the impact of translational control in the development of chronic pain.
Graduate Students
	Amanda Avona Amanda Avona is a PhD student in Cognition and Neuroscience, working on mechanisms of migraine with Greg Dussor. Previously, she obtained an MS in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience from UT Dallas.
	Jacob Lackovic Jacob Lackovic is a PhD student in Cognition and Neuroscience, working on mechanisms of migraine with Greg Dussor.
	Kufre Inyang Kufre Inyang will be a PhD student at The University of Texas at Dallas starting in the Fall of 2015. From Huntsville, TX, he completed his bachelors in Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University in 2012 and his masters in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience at University of Texas at Dallas in 2015. Kufre has been working in the Price Lab since May of 2014 and is currently working on projects related to chronic neuropathic pain and AMPK activators.
	Candler Paige I graduated from the University of South Carolina with a bachelors degree in Biology and Neuroscience where I did my undergraduate research examining potential gene therapies to combat opioid tolerance in chronic pain patients. I then spent a year at Clemson University studying chicken genetics before I moved to Presbyterian College School of Pharmacy as a lab manager. My research in the Romero-Sandoval lab at Prebyterian College focused on the potential use of nanoparticles for targeted gene delivery in post-surgical pain patients. I started my doctorate degree in the Price Lab in 2015 where my current project focuses on sex- differences underlying the transition from an acute to a chronic pain state. When I'm not in the lab I really enjoy spending time outdoors with my husband and two dogs.
	Ishwarya Sankaranarayanan Ishwarya Sankaranarayanan obtained her bachelors in Biotechnology from Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, and her Masters in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology from University of Southern California. She is working on her Ph D in Biological Sciences in the field of nociception and pain, and is advised by Ted Price.
	Stephanie Shiers Stephanie Shiers is a Ph D student in Cognition and Neuroscience program, working with Ted Price and Sven Kroener on the central and peripheral mechanisms of chronic pain. She previously obtained a dual BA and BS degree from the University of New England, and worked at the University of New England and UC Davis.
	Andi Wangzhou Andi Wangzhou obtained a bachelors in Biochemical Engineering from Tianjin University, and a masters in Biomedical Engineering from UT Dallas. He is working towards a Ph D in Cognition and Neuroscience, advised by Ted Price. He works on high throughput genomics assays and algorithms to analyze them in the context of nociception and pain, in collaboration with Diana Tavares-Ferreira and Pradipta Ray.
Undergraduate Students / Research Assistants
	Ayesha Ahmad Ayesha Ahmad is an undergraduate student in the Biochemistry department at UT Dallas. She works with Ted Price on mechanisms of chronic pain.
	Moeno Kume Moeno Kume is a Research Assistant in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. She works with Ted Price and Greg Dussor on models of chronic pain.
	Juliet Mwirigi Juliet Mwirigi is an undergraduate student in the Biological Sciences department at UT Dallas. She works with Ted Price on mechanisms of chronic pain.
Alumni
	Mohammed Ahnaf Arefin Subodh graduated from UTD to become an MD student at UT Health San Antonio. Mohammed Ahnaf Arefin was an undergraduate student at the University of Texas at Dallas. Interested in the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system, he decided to major in Neuroscience. Shortly after taking a Cellular Neuroscience course with Dr. Price, Ahnaf received the opportunity of joining the Price-Dussor lab during the winter of 2015. His current involvement with the chronic pain lab is the conduction of immunofluorescence analysis of the formation of golgi outposts in dorsal root ganglion neurons. Ahnaf had also joined the UTD Brain Bowl team in the spring of 2015 to compete in the annual UT Health Science Center at San Antonio's Brain Bowl Competition; UTD won against Trinity University and The University of Texas at Arlington. He also enjoys watching movies and creating video content; two of his short films won in the Comedy category at the Cosmic Film Festival, UT Dallas' annual meteor theatre event.
	Marina Asiedu Marina finished her post-doctoral appointment at UTD to become a Research Scientist in the pharmaceutical industry. I was born in Ghana and moved to the United States in 2003 to pursue a B.A. degree in biochemistry at Whittier College. Upon completion of my B.A. degree, I joined the Medical Pharmacology PhD. Program at the University of Arizona and worked under the mentorship of Dr. Theodore Price. After my PhD, I transitioned to a postdoctoral fellow position at the same institution with Dr. Gregory Dussor as my immediate mentor training as a patch-clamp electrophysiologist and Dr. Price as a co-mentor. In 2014, I moved to the University of Texas at Dallas with Dr. Dussor and Dr. Price. One of the projects I worked and continue to work on focuses on understanding how ion channels particularly voltage-gated sodium channels are modulated by activators and modulators of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) using patch-clamp electrophysiology and preclinical behavioral pain tests. Other current projects include understanding how MNK-EIF4E regulated translation mediates plasticity in nociceptor excitability and exploring the contribution of dural fibroblasts in migraine headache pathophysiology. I continue to engage in multiple projects where my patch electrophysiology expertise is needed. When I am not in lab, I enjoy cooking and shopping.
	Michael Burton Michael finished his post-doctoral appointment at UTD to become an Assistant Professor at UT Dallas. Dr. Burton is a third year postdoctoral fellow arriving from Dr. Joel Elmquist's lab at UT Southwestern Medical Center. His research focused on how peripheral sensory neurons convey information to the brain to regulate whole body energy homeostasis. While in the Price lab, Michael will focus on peripheral sensory neuron and glial sensing and signaling in the development of chronic pain. Michael received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where his dissertation work uncovered novel IL-6 signaling mechanisms of neuroinflammation and its effects on behavioral deficits in the aged. He believes in order to traverse the gap between basic research and clinical application to the patient, we must realize and appreciate pre-clinical research. He is excited at the notion to play a role in this process, and help humankind through his research in pain development, obesity, and metabolic disorders that we deal with every day. He also enjoys the opportunity to listen to great music, cook a great meal, and watch/play football and basketball. His long-term goal is to secure a tenure-track position in academia where he can develop a leading research program and dedicate his career to studying neural control function, as well as mentor future undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral trainees.
	Blaine Jacobs Blaine finished her post-doctoral appointment at UTD to become an Assistant Professor at The University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio. I received my doctorate in pharmacology from the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio in 2015. There I studied the pharmacology and function of delta opioid receptor-kappa opioid receptor (DOR-KOR) heteromers for antinociceptive signaling in peripheral sensory neurons. I joined Gregory Dussor's laboratory as a post-doctoral fellow in the fall of 2015. I am currently using pre-clinical migraine models and RNA sequencing techniques to determine the contribution of different dural cell types to migraine pathophysiology including vascular endothelial cells.
	Khadijah Mazhar Khadijah graduated from UTD to become an MD/PhD student at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. Khadijah Mazhar was an undergraduate student at UTD. Her fascination with the elaborate molecular pathways underlying biological and behavioral phenomena led her to major in Biology and search for a way to explore some of these mechanisms through research. Khadijah received the privilege of joining the Price-Dussor lab in the summer of 2014, and is involved in the study of cellular mechanisms that lead to chronic pain along with drugs that can interfere with the mechanisms to prevent this. She has conducted immunofluorescence analyses, of puromycylation assays, to analyze the effects of certain drugs on protein translation in sensory neurons of the trigeminal ganglia. She is really looking forward to continue this work to help find a way to undermine chronic pain. Khadijah is a member of the Collegium V Honors Program at UTD and a recipient of the Academic Excellence Scholarship. She was named on the Dean’s List in Fall 2013 and Fall 2014. This year, Khadijah volunteered as an undergraduate manager of the Center of Hope clinic. She also enjoys viewing artwork and painting; one of her paintings was published as the cover of The Exley, UT Dallas' annual undergraduate research journal.
	Salim Megat Salim finished his post-doctoral appointment at UTD to become a Research Scientist at The University of Strasbourg. I graduated with my PhD in 2015 from the University of Strasbourg where I worked under the supervision of Dr. Michel Barrot. I moved to the United States in 2015 and currently work as a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Texas at Dallas under the mentorship of Dr. Theodore Price. One of our current projects is aimed at understanding the role of the dopaminergic pathway in the maintenance of pathological pain plasticity. We have recently highlighted a prominent role of the spinal D1-like receptors in the transition to a chronic pain in a model of hyperalgesic priming. To address this question, we are using a combination of nociceptive tests allowing us to test the sensory and affective components of pain as well as immunohistochemical and biochemical approaches.
	Jamie Moy Jamie finished her PhD at UTD to become a postdoctoral scientist at The University of Pittsburgh. I graduated with a bachelor's of science degree in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from The University of Arizona in 2011. After graduating, I took an internship at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, where I investigated the effects of secondary metabolites from cyanobacteria on cancer and parasitic diseases. In Fall 2012, I joined the PhD program in pharmacology at The University of Arizona, and joined the Price lab in April 2013. In 2014, I transferred to The University of Texas-Dallas cognition and neuroscience program, where I am a 4th year PhD candidate in Dr. Price's laboratory. Currently, I am investigating translation mechanisms in the context of pathological pain plasticity. Outside of lab, I enjoy boxing, playing tennis, and teaching my guinea pig (named Dendrite) commands in Chinese.
	Subodh Potla Subodh graduated from UTD to become an MPH student at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso. Subodh Potla was a neuroscience major at UT Dallas. He is a National Merit Finalist and a part of the UT Dallas Honors Program. His neuroscience research interests began at the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science at the University of North Texas, which is a facilitated college and high school program when he joined a computational neuroscience lab focused on creating a wheelchair controlled by brainwaves. Subodh joined the Price-Dussor lab during the Fall 2014 semester and is a part of the pain transcriptomics group. His current project involves computationally search for 5’ UTRs in order to investigate correlations and find potential gene targets in DRG neurons. His hobbies other than research including basketball, playing the saxophone, and spending time with his family and friends.
	Siddhartha Srivastava Siddhartha graduated from UTD to become an MD student at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore. Siddhartha Srivastava was a pre-medical undergraduate student at UTD. He is a neuroscience major and his fascination of the neuronal connections and genetic regulating pathways has lead to his primary work dealing with computational analysis of RNA sequencing data. He has become prominent in the use of both UNIX and MATLAB programming languages and works to identify unkown gene targets that play major roles in both cancer and nociceptive phenotypes. His analyses use complex statistical methods involving motif models, position weight matrices, and continuous density functions to analyze potential targets. Siddhartha is a member of the Collegium V Honors Program at UTD and is also a National Merit Scholar. Aside from research, he enjoys volunteering at a medical clinic and engaging other students through his role as an academic tutor.