Testing a New Approach to Solving the Opioid Epidemic
Testing a New Approach to Solving the Opioid Epidemic
Testing a New Approach to Solving the Opioid Epidemic
When it comes to life expectancy, the United States lags behind many other rich nations. One major reason: the opioid crisis. Every year, tens of thousands of Americans die from a drug overdose—opioids contributed to more than 79,000 deaths in 2023—and 3 in 10 adults in the US say they or a family member have experienced opioid addiction, according to health policy nonprofit KFF.
“Clinically used opioids are a double-edged sword—although they are some of the most powerful tools to mitigate pain, they also come with the risk of misuse that has propelled the ongoing opioid epidemic,” says Mikel Garcia-Marcos, a Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine professor of medicine.
An expert on cell communication and the molecular foundations of disease, Garcia-Marcos is examining how opioids interact with the body, testing whether it’s possible to control how individual proteins in cells, known as receptors, react to the powerful drugs. He hopes to better understand how to get people the pain relief they need while lowering a medication’s addictiveness.
Among those helping him with the project is BU biochemistry student Sarah Kornfeld. She’s studying in the Garcia-Marcos Lab with funding support from BU’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program and a prestigious Goldwater Scholarship. According to Kornfeld (CAS’26), there are two main pathways in the body when it comes to opioid receptor activation: one that leads to pain relief, and one that leads to addiction.
“What we’re trying to do here is bias the signaling of opioids toward the pain relief pathway,” Kornfeld says. That could potentially mean, for example, you could take less of a drug—reducing the potential for addiction—without dimming its pain relieving power.
In the lab, they’ve developed a tool called inhibitor of GoLoco—iGoLoco for short. It puts the brakes on a class of proteins, GoLoco, that help control cell processes. Kornfeld says the proteins play a big role in opioid receptor signaling. Garcia-Marcos and Kornfeld are testing whether inhibiting these proteins increases the pain relief response to opioids.
“Researchers around the world have been trying to develop improved opioid drugs that have powerful analgesic effects but reduced undesired effects that lead to addiction and death,” Garcia-Marcos says. “Our research provides a new way to approach this problem.”
Kornfeld hopes they can share their research with drug companies to create more effective medicines. She says having the opportunity to do this kind of in-depth research as an undergrad has been inspiring, and that the Garcia-Marcos Lab has given her the opportunity to learn different technical skills.
According to Garcia-Marcos, having undergraduate students be part of the lab, working alongside PhD and postdoctoral students, adds a dynamism to the team that’s essential to achieving their scientific goals.
“I think that this lab in particular has been really great about giving undergraduates an opportunity to gain independence,” Kornfeld says. “It’s a great experience to learn if this is a field that I want to go into.”
In the video above, watch as Kornfeld showcases her research and explains how it may impact the ongoing opioid epidemic.
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