Catherine Cahill

Catherine Cahill, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where she directs the Pain and Addiction Lab and serves as a member of the Hatos Center for Neuropharmacology and Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior. Her research bridges chronic pain mechanisms and opioid addiction neurobiology, focusing on how pain alters reward circuitry and dopaminergic signaling. She has secured funding from NIDA, NIH, DoD, and the Shirley & Stefan Hatos Foundation.

• Education:
  • Ph.D. in Pharmacology, Dalhousie University (1996)
  • Recruited to UC Irvine (2012) and UCLA (2017)

Research Themes encompass kappa opioid receptor (KOR) function in pain aversion, microglial modulation of reward pathways, and translational strategies for non-addictive analgesics. Her lab pioneered the identification of KOR upregulation in chronic pain models and microglial BDNF release mechanisms in opioid tolerance.

Scientific Leadership includes editorial roles at the British Journal of Pharmacology and Pain Research Forum, alongside over 25 years of NIH/DoD grant support. She mentors a diverse team of postdocs, graduate researchers, and undergraduate trainees in interdisciplinary projects spanning rodent behavioral testing, GPCR interactomics, and human clinical collaborations.