From controlling insects to relieving human suffering...

Entomologist Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, is in the news.

Some forty years ago, he discovered an enzyme inhibitor that dramatically reduces inflammation, inflammatory pain and neuropathic pain.

Fast forward to July 6, 2015. In ground-breaking research estimated to affect millions of patients globally, the Hammock lab and the Fawaz Haj lab, Department of Nutrition, discovered a key mechanism that causes neuropathic pain--a complex, chronic and difficult-to-treat pain caused by nerve injuries from trauma or from such diseases as diabetes, shingles, multiple sclerosis and stroke.

A biological process, termed endoplasmic reticulum stress or ER stress, is the significant driver of neuropathic pain, said lead researchers Bora Inceoglu of the Hammock lab/UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Ahmed Bettaieb of the Fawaz Haj lab.

The ground-breaking discovery has attracted worldwide attention since its publication July 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This is a fundamental discovery that opens new ways to control chronic pain,” said Hammock. "We can now specifically search for agents to control ER stress and its downstream pathways. This search is already underway in a number of laboratories working on cancer and other diseases.” (See news story.)

Who is Bruce Hammock? Holly Caster, editor of PAINWeek interviewed Hammock July 10 and published a Q&A today in a piece titled "Pain Reporter: The Professor and the Science Behind the Potential Management of Neuropathic Pain."

Hammock pointed out that his research "started as very fundamental research in developmental biology using insects as models.  We found that the soluble epoxide hydrolase is highly conserved in evolution and asked its role in man and other mammals.  We first found that inhibitors of the enzyme stabilize natural anti hypertensive compounds called EETs and reduced blood pressure.  We then found that they reduced inflammation and inflammatory pain.  We tried neuropathic pain as an indication because it is so difficult to treat and were surprised to find that the sEH inhibitor worked far better than drugs like gabapentin and Lyrica currently sold for neuropathic pain. I have attached a comparison.  Having failed to interest large pharma companies in this biology we started a small company EicOsis to move the inhibitors to the clinic for treating pain in both companion  animals and man.

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The research, Hammock noted, was initially done on rodents. "The fact that the compounds work in a variety of species builds confidence.  It argues that with regard to neuropathic pain different species are similar (dog, horse, man, rat,etc.)" he told her. Read the full interview here: http://www.painweek.org/brainfood_post/pain-reporter-the-professor-and-the-science-behind-the-potential-management-of-neuropathic-pain/

Hammock acknowledged his long-term interest in nature and biology. "This was fostered by a wonderful boy scoutmaster who thought kids should be wandering in the woods and a great biology teacher who provided a microscope to me in high school and said 'go discover.'  The move to entomology was further stimulated when I realized that the big cause of human suffering in the world was starvation caused in part by insects eating crops.  It was also stimulated by realizing that insect-borne diseases dwarf cancer, heart disease, etc., in terms of human suffering. It is hard to know where science leads.  In this case, asking how caterpillars turn into butterflies led to a treatment for pain."

Who would have ever thought that the study of caterpillars would lead to a treatment for pain?