A study in cells and mice finds compound works with fewer side effects than opioids. Fentanyl, oxycodone, morphine—these substances are familiar to many as a source of both pain relief and the cause of a painful epidemic of addiction and death.
Scientists have attempted for years to balance the potent pain-relieving properties of opioids with their numerous negative side effects—with mostly mixed results.
Work by John Traynor, Ph.D., and Andrew Alt, Ph.D., and their team at the University of Michigan Edward F. Domino Research Center, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, seeks to side-step these problems by harnessing the body’s own ability to block pain.
All opioid drugs—from poppy-derived opium to heroin—work on receptors that are naturally prese...
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