Author archives: Sergio Laínez

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Sergio Lainez Vicente has spent more than a decade studying ion channels in research centres across Europe. After getting his PhD in the Sensory Biology lab at the CIPF (Valencia, Spain), he moved to Nijmegen (The Netherlands) as a postdoctoral fellow to work on divalent cation reabsorption in kidney. Studies in pain physiology at University of Cambridge, King's College London, and the Neuroscience and Pain Research Unit Pfizer had in Cambridge (Neusentis) would follow. Recently, he has accepted a senior research associate position at the University of Bristol to get involved in an MRC-funded project aiming to reduce the incidence of sudden death on patients with heart failure.

The rise of the superbugs

The rise of the superbugs

MicrobiologyPharmacy

By Sergio Laínez

Our society will be facing a number of health-related challenges in the near future, partly as a consequence of our own practices. Perhaps the best known examples are the (severe) health issues linked to smoking (not just to smokers, but also their children via epigenetic changes) or the abnormally high intake of carbohydrates, with the […]

Nociceptor inhibition as a new therapeutic approach for asthma

Nociceptor inhibition as a new therapeutic approach for asthma

BiomedicineMedicineNeurobiologyPharmacy

By Sergio Laínez

When we hear somebody wheezing, coughing, showing chest tightness and shortness of breath, most of us will immediately recognize the underlying cause: Asthma . This is not a minor issue, but one affecting approximately 5% of the entire world population (and steeply growing every year) and causing the death of nearly 400000 people back in […]

Novel strategies to selectively reduce pain

Novel strategies to selectively reduce pain

MedicineNeurobiologyPharmacy

By Sergio Laínez

A recurrent problem with pain is the absence of therapeutic strategies to selectively block the nociceptors (neurons responsible to detect painful stimuli) that need to be targeted for a particular indication. Things get even worse if we take into account that some molecules used for pain management do affect other, more general physiological processes. Local […]

Sunscreens, health and environment: a dangerous cocktail?

Sunscreens, health and environment: a dangerous cocktail?

EcologyHealth

By Sergio Laínez

Prolonged exposure to sunlight is not recommended. Even though is really important to synthesize vitamin D which helps us absorbing calcium or phosphate and maintain a mineralized skeleton, the effects of sun´s ultraviolet radiation (mainly UVA and UVB) can be prejudicial in the long term. Main issues may be sunburn (UVB), reduced skin elasticity leading […]

Melodrama with happy ending for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy patients

Melodrama with happy ending for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy patients

BiologyBiomedicineGeneticsMedicinePharmacy

By Sergio Laínez

Patients suffering from rare diseases (defined by the European as those affecting less than 5 in 10000 people) have traditionally been overlooked by pharmaceutical companies. They are usually looking for the next blockbuster drug, so the lack of a large patient pool means they may not generate the revenue needed to justify the R&D financial […]

Pain lessons, by the Naked Mole Rat

Pain lessons, by the Naked Mole Rat

Neurobiology

By Sergio Laínez

Nature is one of my favourite places to look for scientific-related answers. As life did start roughly three billion years ago, it has been encountering endless difficulties that needed to be solved in order to prosper. To make things even more complicated, living organisms had to get adapted in multiple different ways because of the […]

Molecular Detectives: discovering new ion channels (II)

Molecular Detectives: discovering new ion channels (II)

BiologyBiomedicineGeneticsMolecular biology

By Sergio Laínez

The identification of previously unknown proteins is a difficult task and often requires to follow unconventional thinking. In my previous post, I have described how the TRPV1 ion channel (formerly known as the capsaicin receptor) was discovered by combining the construction of a cDNA library from primary afferent neurons (DRG neurons) and the functional selection […]