معرفی
Benedict Kolber is an Associate Professor and Program Head of the Systems and Cellular Neuroscience Track in the Cognition and Neuroscience PhD program at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). He is affiliated with the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences and the Center for Advanced Pain Studies. Kolber holds a PhD in Neuroscience from Washington University in St. Louis and conducted postdoctoral research in anesthesiology pain studies there. His research focuses on understanding stress adaptation’s impact on pain, drug discovery for analgesics and opioid overdose antidotes, and integrative non-pharmacological therapies for chronic pain. His work combines molecular neuroscience techniques with clinical collaborations.
Key research areas include:
- Pain biology and amygdala circuitry in chronic/visceral pain
- Natural product-derived analgesics from marine cyanobacteria and African plants
- Novel opioid overdose antidotes minimizing withdrawal
- Multimodal therapies combining meditation/exercise for chronic low back pain
His recent publications emphasize σ₂ receptor/TMEM97’s role in pain modulation, iPSC-derived sensory neuron drug screening, and computational pain modeling in the amygdala. Kolber has received numerous awards including UTD’s President’s Scholarship Excellence Award (2019) and the Early Career Research Award from the International Association for the Study of Pain (2013). He actively mentors graduate students and has developed innovative training programs through initiatives like the ASCB MALT Fellowship.
His Pain Stress Lab focuses on translational research bridging basic science and clinical applications. Current projects include developing 3D agent-based models of pain circuits and evaluating novel therapeutic compounds from natural sources.
