Scientists from the Research School of Biology have opened the door to a new world of pain treatments with their discovery of the exact way that pain relief drugs, such as anaesthetics, work on the body.
Dr Ben Corry and Lewis Martin developed a detailed computer model that revealed for the first time how benzocaine, a local anaesthetic, and phenytoin, an anti-epilepsy drug, enter into nerve cells and prevent the pain signals being transmitted to the brain.
“By understanding how the current range of drugs work we can best design the next generation, to better treat conditions such as chronic pain, epilepsy and cardiac arrhythmia,