Ishmail Abdus-Saboor, Mitchell J. Blutt and Margo Krody Blutt Presidential Assistant Professor of Biology, has been named a member of the 2020 class of Award in Pain Scholars by the Rita Allen Foundation. The award celebrates four early-career leaders in the biomedical sciences whose research holds exceptional promise for revealing new pathways to understand and treat chronic pain.

The selected scholars will receive grants of $50,000 annually for up to three years to conduct innovative research on critical topics on the biological mechanisms of pain—including how the nervous system distinguishes between soft and harsh stimuli, what role the immune system plays in chronic pain, and what makes individuals at risk for chronic pain after a traumatic injury. 

“My research focuses on a long-standing question—how does the nervous system encode a soft gentle caress versus a harsh painful stimulation?” said Dr. Abdus-Saboor. “I use neurobiology, computational biology, and mathematics to objectively measure pain.”