Franziska Denk

Title

Neu­ro-inflam­ma­tion in chron­ic pain

Abstract

Periph­er­al ner­vous sys­tem dys­func­tion is a key fea­ture of chron­ic pain con­di­tions. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, research has focused either on how the immune sys­tem dri­ves this dys­func­tion or on cell-autonomous neu­ronal mech­a­nisms that pro­mote hyper­ex­citabil­i­ty in the ner­vous system. 

Based on this per­spec­tive, any chron­ic pain con­di­tion that per­sists in the absence of inflam­ma­tion is con­sid­ered some­what ‘mys­te­ri­ous’ and large­ly dri­ven by cen­tral ner­vous sys­tem abnor­mal­i­ties. How­ev­er, what we are miss­ing from this view is the role of mes­enchy­mal cells, like fibrob­lasts, mur­al cells and endothe­lial cells; all of them sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact the local tis­sue envi­ron­ment and its cur­rent inflam­ma­to­ry state. This talk will show­case results which sug­gest sig­nif­i­cant amounts of direct cross-talk between the mes­enchyme and periph­er­al neu­rons. Ulti­mate­ly, com­mu­ni­ca­tion between these cell types may explain why pain can per­sist in the absence of leuko­cyte infil­tra­tion and/​or activation. 

Biog­ra­phy

Franziska Denk is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at King’s Col­lege Lon­don, where she works on neu­ro-immune-stro­mal cell inter­ac­tions in the con­text of chron­ic pain. Her lab uses trans­genic mod­els, stem cell derived human cell cul­ture sys­tems and high-through­put mol­e­c­u­lar analy­ses (https://​www​.franziskadenk​.com/, @denk_lab). Franziska’s team is fund­ed by the Well­come Trust, the MRC, the Euro­pean Union, indus­try and sev­er­al char­i­ties. Her group is pas­sion­ate about data shar­ing (Denk, Nature, 2017) and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research in an open, pos­i­tive research cul­ture (Soli­man & Denk, BBI, 2023). 

Home-page: https://​www​.franziskadenk​.com/​r​e​s​e​a​rch