NYU Pain Research Center

Signaling the Future of Pain Research and Treatment

Message from the Director and Associate Director

20% of the adult U.S. population suffers from chronic pain. Opioids, once thought to be the ideal treatment for chronic pain, are highly addictive and the primary cause of drug related mortality, making them a non-viable alternative. Despite this, over 140 million opioid prescriptions/year are generated, and drug-related deaths have continued to increase rapidly because alternatives have yet to be discovered. The NYU Pain Research Center (NYUPRC) was created to address this health crisis.

By focusing our vast expertise on pain-related mechanistic, clinical and translational studies, we are uniquely and strongly positioned to lead the efforts in creating novel therapies and state of the art drug delivery systems targeted towards non-opioid solutions to treat pain.

The NYU Pain Research Center was established in 2022 to lead the development of innovative pain research initiatives, with a focus on solutions to the national opioid crisis. The NYUPRC focuses on basic, clinical and translational studies designed to create and validate novel pain therapies; recruitment of a cadre of collaborative, world-class investigators with expertise in the neurobiology of pain; recruit and train the next generation of basic and translational pain scientific leaders; establish collaborations with corporations and pharmaceutical companies; and identify federal and philanthropic sources of funding to conduct and promote research on alternatives to opioids for chronic pain treatment. As part of our mission to accelerate academic innovation, the NYUPRC is designed to be the vanguard of scientific excellence, with world-class research, state-of-the-art equipment and bench to bedside studies to bring novel therapies to market.