Dr. Gerald Zamponi​

Dr. Gerald Zamponi is a Professor in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Calgary. He received his undergraduate training in Engineering Physics, followed by a PhD in Neuroscience and Postdoctoral training at the University of British Columbia. He previously served as the Head of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology and as Senior Associate Dean (Research) in the Cumming School of Medicine. He is cofounder and CSO of Zymedyne Therapeutics. He has published over 325 articles, has given over 270 invited lectures across the globe and has attracted in excess of $25 Million in research support to his lab. Dr. Zamponi is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards. In addition to having been an Alberta Innovates-Health Solutions Scientist and Canadian Institutes of Health Research Investigator, he is currently a Canada Research Chair in Molecular Neurobiology. He is an elected Fellow of both the Royal Society of Canada, and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, which represents top honors for those in the basic and medical science, respectively.

The title for Dr. Zamponi's talk will be “Determinants of chronic pain - from calcium channels to brain circuits” .

Chronic pain affects approximately 20 percent of adults and remains difficult to treat. It is thus essential important to develop new avenues for pain intervention. T-type calcium channels regulate the excitability of afferent nociceptive fibers and spinal cord interneurons. Levels of the Cav3.2 T-type channel isoform are increased in chronic pain states in these neurons and blocking these channels mediates analgesia. Dr. Zamponi will present how post translational modification of these channels by the ubiquitin system can be targeted for the development of novel small organic pain therapeutics.  Ascending nociceptive information is transmitted to the brain, where it is processed into an unpleasant experience.  During neuropathic pain conditions, the pain matrix in the brain undergoes plasticity changes that alter processing of nociceptive information and can contribute to enhanced pain perception.  He will discuss work from his lab that strives to unravel how brain circuits process pain related information in conditions of chronic pain with the use of opto- and chemo-genetic approaches.

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