The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) has awarded a joint administrative supplement grant to Brian Schmidt, DDS, of the Bluestone Center for Clinical Research at the New York University (NYU) College of Dentistry, and Markus Hardt, PhD, a protein chemist at the Boston Biomedical Research Institute, to study the molecular mechanisms of oral cancer pain.
The grant builds on a $1.25 million, five-year NIDCR parent grant awarded to Drs. Schmidt and Hardt in 2010 to spur the development of more sophisticated analgesics to alleviate the pain that is so often manifested in patients with oral cancer.
The project involves 10 scientific collaborators from New York and Boston working to transfer complex data files, manuscripts, specimens, and citations between the New York City and Boston laboratories. Informationists at NYU will streamline this process by developing Web-based systems to enable the researchers to efficiently share data and citations, and automated literature searching processes to quickly and effectively identify and elucidate the role of specific molecular mechanisms -- proteases and peptides -- in cancer pain, thereby allowing them to focus on the most relevant peptide and protease candidates for drug development.
