Faculty Information

Steve Davidson, PhD

Associate Professor, Molecular Pathobiology
Associate Director, NYU Pain Research Center

steve.davidson@nyu.edu
Office: (212) 998-8941

Education

2003 BS Psychology, University of New Orleans

2009 PhD Neuroscience, University of Minnesota

2014 Postdoctoral Training, Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine

Honors

  • Hermann Handwerker Award for Itch Research, 2007
  • Best Dissertation in Biological or Medical Sciences, University of Minnesota, 2009
  • Future Leaders in Pain Research, American Pain Society, 2010
  • Rita Allen Foundation Scholars in Pain Award, 2016
  • Brain and Behavior Foundation NARSAD Award, 2017
  • Innovation Grant Award, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, 2018
  • Rising Star Award, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, 2021

Biography

Steve Davidson earned a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Minnesota in 2009 and completed postdoctoral training in 2014 at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. He joined the faculty at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 2015 where he opened a lab to research the neurobiology of pain and itch. There he served as Associate Director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program and President of the Ohio Miami Valley Society for Neuroscience Chapter. In 2024, Dr. Davidson moved to the College of Dentistry at New York University to create the Human Ganglia Lab and serve as Associate Director of the NYU Pain Research Center. His research has been published in high impact peer-reviewed journals and funded by the National Institutes for Health and Research Foundations since 2006. Steve currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Pain, PAIN, and is a standing member of the Neurobiology of Pain and Itch NIH Study Section.

Research Overview

Human tissues research to advance translational and regenerative medicine for chronic pain.

Chronic pain is a major and expanding health problem in the United States and across the globe. The primary mission of the Human Ganglia Lab is to discover new safe and efficacious medicines and other therapies that reduce the burden of chronic pain in patients. Our strategy leverages recovered tissues from human organ donors and induced pluripotent sensory cells to extend animal models and catalyze translation to the clinic. We are focused on revealing the molecular signaling pathways within human nociceptors and the bidirectional communication between human nociceptors, glial and immune cells, and innervated end-organs. 

Representative Publications

Complete listing available on the National Library of Medicine site.

Kadakia F, Khadka A, Yazell J, Davidson S. Chemogenetic modulation of posterior insula CaMKIIa neurons alters pain and thermoregulation. Journal of Pain (2023) PMID: 37832899

Du S, Wu S, Feng X, Wang B, Xia S, Liang L, Zhang L, Govindarajalu G, Bunk A, Kadakia F, Mao Q, Guo X, Zhao H, Berkman T, Liu T, Li H, Stillman J, Bekker A, Davidson S, Tao YX. A nerve-injury specific long noncoding RNA promotes neuropathic pain by increasing Ccl2 expression. J Clin Invest. (2022). PMID: 35775484

Nguyen MQ, von Buchholtz LJ, Reker AN, Nicholas J. P. Ryba NJP, Davidson S. Single nucleus transcriptomic analysis of human dorsal root ganglion neurons. eLIFE (2021). PMID:34825887. 

Schutte S, Kadakia FK, Davidson S. Skin-Nerve Co-culture Systems for Disease Modeling and Drug Discovery. Tissue Engineering (2021).  PMID: 33349133 

Reker AN, Chen S, Etter K, Burger T, Caudill M, Davidson S. The Operant Plantar Thermal Assay: A Novel Device for Assessing Thermal Pain Tolerance in Mice. eNeuro (2020). PMID: 32071073

Valtcheva MV, Copits BA, Davidson S, Sheahan TD, Pullen MY, McCall JG, Dikranian, K, Gereau RW (2016) Human sensory neurons: surgical extraction of dorsal root ganglia and preparation of primary cultures for functional studies. Nature Protocols 11(10):1877-88. PMID: 27606776.

Research Approaches

Techniques used in the Human Ganglia Lab include: primary cell culture, co-culture and microfluidic ‘organ-on-chip’ methods, electrophysiology, calcium imaging, pharmacology, genetic manipulations, proteomic assays, confocal and fluorescent time-lapse microscopy.