Credit: Dan Hixson/University of Utah College of Engineering
University of Utah bioengineering assistant professor Robby Bowles and bioengineering doctoral student Niloofar Farhan are part of a team that has discovered a way to curb chronic pain by modulating genes that reduce tissue- and cell-damaging inflammation. The team is using the CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat) system — new technology of modifying human genetics — to stop cell death and keep the cells from producing molecules that damage tissue and result in chronic pain.