Events

Effectively monitoring and managing pain remain major challenges in the clinic and constitute active areas of research today. There is a critical need to both identify new non-opioid drug targets for chronic pain management and provide more objective ways to measure pain. To improve the treatment and measurement of pain, we describe here the development of prototypical pain biosensors.

Electrostatic interactions can be used in the self-assembly of a wide range of responsive, bioinspired soft materials ranging from dehydrated thin films, fibers, and bulk solids to dense, polymer-rich liquid complex coacervates, as well as more complex hierarchical structures such as micelles and hydrogels. This responsiveness can include swelling and dissolution or solidification, which can be harnessed to facilitate encapsulation and the subsequent fabrication of functional materials. We draw inspiration from biomolecular condensates, which utilize liquid-liquid phase separation to create transient compartments in cells.