Nanoparticle-Based Imaging and Therapy of Chronic Pain in the Dorsal Root Ganglia (DRG)

Chronic pain is a debilitating disease, which affects approximately 1.5 billion people worldwide, and of those, approximately4% suffer from neuropathic pain.

Neuropathic pain is often described as a shooting or burning pain that can come and thendisappear but equally it may become chronic, where the pain may become unrelenting and severe. It often is the result ofnerve damage or a malfunctioning nervous system.

Additionally there is the impact upon society where the costs related todisability allowance, treatment, lost wages and productivity impacts the economy.

Current treatments for chronic pain are notfully reliable and there is a severe lack of tools to diagnose or visualise the pain process within the dorsal root ganglia(DRG). Humans have 62 DRGs which are the first relay stations in the pain pathway.

Local targeted treatment at the level ofthose DRGs involved in the pain process is the solution to circumvent side effects and optimise treatment.

We aim to identifyinvolved DRGs by visualising cells or molecules in the DRG which are directly or indirectly associated with the generation ofpain. We will use a novel method of nanoparticles targeted towards pain-associated cells or molecules in the DRG. A vastamount of neuropathic pain studies have shown an eminent infiltration of macrophages into affected DRGs.

Thesenanoparticles will be specifically designed to target initially the macrophages in the DRG, encapsulating both therapeuticpayloads and imaging contrast reagents to monitor pain-associated activities.

The goal of PIANO is therefore to facilitate astate-of-art approach to visualisation of neuropathic pain / inflammation at DRG sites as well as to simultaneously releaseanalgesic molecules from the nanoparticles.