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Preclinical studies have demonstrated that TAFA4 has considerable potential as an analgesic for the treatment of chronic postoperative and neuropathic pain.
Pain, whether chronic or acute, is a frequent condition that is challenging to treat. A lack of effective treatment is an important sociological issue with implications for the well-being of patients. Moreover, chronic pain can be debilitating and has a major effect on the morale of patients, rendering them more susceptible to depression.
Chronic postoperative pain (CPOP) is of major economic and societal concern due to the high healthcare costs and rates of absenteeism it generates.
A mean of one in five patients develop Chronic postoperative pain after surgery. About 500,000 people per year suffer from Chronic postoperative pain in France, and this condition has a significant impact on the quality of life of these patients. Chronic postoperative pain remains poorly understood and is underdiagnosed, and is therefore a major problem for healthcare systems.
Chronic postoperative pain can occur in 10 to 50% of patients undergoing surgery, with 2 to 10% suffering from acute pain.
Chronic postoperative pain is one of the principal reasons for consultations at pain control centers. Amputation, breast cancer, and thoracic and herniated disc operations are the most likely causes of induced chronic pain. After lumbar pain, surgery is the second most common cause of neuropathic pain in the general population.
millions surgical interventions are performed around the world each year.
people Chronic pain occurs in a mean of 20% of those undergoing surgery and is one of the major motives for consulting at a pain clinic.
Neuropathic pain is characterized by unpleasant symptoms, such as shooting pain or burning sensations, numbness, altered sensations and sensations that are very difficult to describe.
According to the International Association for the Study of Pain, neuropathic pain results directly from injury or disease affecting the somatosensory system. There is no effective long-term treatment for many patients with neuropathic pain, with some cases proving refractory to the most powerful analgesics, such as morphine . Antiepileptic drugs or antidepressants are the drugs most frequently prescribed, despite their known adverse effects.
According to the STOPNEP (Study of the Prevalence of Neuropathic Pain) epidemiological survey performed in France (source: Livre Blanc de la Douleur), the prevalence of neuropathic pain in the general population is 7% in France, and this pain is moderate to severe in 5%.
Unpleasant pain or burning sensations are experienced by 8% of the world population.
Moderate-to-severe neuropathic pain affects 5% of the population.
Discover the key milestones in the progress of the Tafalgie project
Tafalgie Therapeutics is a CNRS and AMU spin-off company engaged in biopharmaceutical research and committed to developing a new scientific approach for next-generation treatments based on a ground-breaking innovation : a mechanism of action derived from an endogenous secreted protein capable of modulating pain signals.
Alain Eschalier (MD, PhD, PharmD) is Professor Emeritus of Medical Pharmacology at the University of Clermont, Auvergne, France and is board-certified in pharmacology, psychiatry and human biology.
Dr. Clifford J. Woolf was born in South Africa, where he earned his MB, BCh, and PhD degrees. He then moved to London and became Professor of Neurobiology at University College London. In 1997, he was recruited by the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School to serve as the Richard J. Kitz Professor of Anesthesiology Research.
His research focuses on the roles of the functional, chemical and structural plasticity of neurons in both the normal adaptive functions of nervous systems and in the maladaptive changes contributing to neurological diseases. He focuses, in particular, on pain, regeneration and neurodegeneration and on the exploitation of stem cell-derived neurons for disease modeling and drug screening.
Jean-Louis Kraus is Professor Emeritus at the University of Aix Marseille, France and was formerly Professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
Prof. Kraus’s considerable experience and commercial success have enabled him to develop extensive networks during the course of his career.
• Prof. Levine’s research focuses on pain and analgesia, including, in particular, the mechanism by which the placebo effect can relieve pain. In 1978, he published an influential study showing that placebo analgesia could be blocked by the opioid antagonist naloxone.
His research has led to the identification of new ion channels and receptors activated by temperature, mechanical force, and increases in cell volume. His laboratory has shown that these ion channels play crucial roles in sensing temperature, touch, and pain, in proprioception, and in regulating vascular tone.
Patapoutian was born in Lebanon in 1967 and attended the American University of Beirut for one year before emigrating to The United States in 1986. He became a US citizen, graduating from UCLA in 1990 and obtaining a PhD from Caltech in 996, for his work in the laboratory of Dr. Barbara Wold.
Following his postdoctoral work with Dr. Lou Reichardt at UCSF, he joined the Scripps Research Institute faculty in 2000, and is currently Professor in the Department of Neuroscience. He also held a position at the Genomics Institute of The Novartis Research Foundation from 2000-2014.
Patapoutian was awarded the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Neuroscience in 2006 and was named an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2014.
He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2016), a member of the National Academy of Sciences (2017) and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2020). He received the 2017 Alden Spencer Award from Columbia University (together with David Ginty), the 2019 Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Research (with David Julius), the 2020 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience (with David Julius), the 2021 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (shared with David Julius), and the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with David Julius).
2021 : Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with David Julius)