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PRF Seminar – The Role of Keratinocytes in Heat Sensation, Cold Sensation, and Mechanosensation


17 August 2020


PRF Webinars

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Editor’s note: This is the 15th in a series of weekly PRF seminars designed to help keep the pain research community connected during the COVID-19 pandemic and to provide all members of our community with virtual educational opportunities. The seminar series is supported by the Center for Advanced Pain Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, US.

 

On August 17, 2020, the IASP Pain Research Forum hosted a seminar with Kate Sadler, PhD, and Alex Mikesell, PhD candidate, both of the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, US. A Q&A session moderated by Kyle Baumbauer, PhD, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas, US, followed the presentation.

  • Kate Sadler, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, US
  • Alex Mikesell, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, US
  • Kyle  Baumbauer, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas, US

A recording of this seminar will soon be freely available to IASP members at the IASP Pain Education Resource Center (PERC).

 

Here is an abstract from the presenters

Mammals are able to sense their external environment through a network of peripheral sensory neurons that innervate their skin. Historically, these neurons were considered the sole detectors and transducers of cutaneous stimuli, but science from the last decade has clearly demonstrated that non-neuronal cells are also critical for these processes. In this webinar, members of the Stucky Lab will discuss how keratinocytes, the most abundant epidermal cell type, contribute to somatosensation. Dr. Kate Sadler will first present a short refresher on non-neuronal epidermal cells, and then discuss new evidence for keratinocyte involvement in normal cold and heat sensation. Following that, Alex Mikesell will describe how epidermal keratinocytes mediate normal neuronal and behavioral responses to mechanical stimuli, highlighting specific ion channels that are required for these processes. The team will close by discussing how the implications from their work in naïve tissues and animals can be extended into injury models to better understand how keratinocytes contribute to allodynia and hyperalgesia.

 

About the presenters

Kate Sadler, PhD, earned her PhD in Dr. Ben Kolber’s lab at Duquesne University. Her dissertation examined how neuronal activity in the central nucleus of the amygdala drives bladder pain in mice. Wanting to learn electrophysiology and all about the peripheral nervous system, Sadler started her postdoctoral fellowship in the Stucky Lab in January 2017. While there, Sadler’s primary focus has been understanding the molecular basis of acute and chronic sickle cell disease pain. Sadler’s work was funded by an NINDS F32 postdoctoral fellowship.

 

Alex Mikesell, PhD candidate, completed his undergraduate training at Brigham Young University and is currently a PhD candidate in the Neuroscience Doctoral Program at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He joined the Stucky lab in May of 2019. His research focuses on how keratinocytes and sensory neurons communicate to mediate normal somatosensation, as well as how this communication is altered following peripheral tissue injury.

 

About the moderator

Kyle Baumbauer, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology and the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas. Dr. Baumbauer earned a BS in psychology and a BA in sociology from the University of Central Florida, and his PhD in experimental psychology from Kent State University. He completed his postdoctoral training at Texas A&M University in behavioral and cellular neuroscience and at the Pittsburgh Center for Pain Research at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in neurobiology. His lab uses a variety of molecular, cellular, electrophysiological, and behavioral methods to explore how nociceptor response properties are modulated by non-neuronal cells, including satellite glial cells and keratinocytes, during inflammation and spinal cord injury. The goal of his work is to identify novel targets to promote the resolution of inflammatory and post-traumatic spinal cord injury pain.

 

Join the conversation about the seminar on Twitter @PainResForum #PRFSeminar

 

We thank the Center for Advanced Pain Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, US, for its support of the PRF seminar series.

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