Defining the mechanisms of pain in junctional epidermolysis bullosa
Ongoing| Project lead | Professor Shafaq Sikandar |
| Organisation | Queen Mary University of London, William Harvey Research Institute |
| Partner organizations & collaborators | Drs Matthew Caley and Emanuel Rognoni (QMUL), Prof Margarita Calvo (Pontificia Universidad CatĆ³lica de Chile), Prof Maria Maiaru (University of Reading) |
| Project budget | GBP 212,178 |
| Start date / Duration | 01. Jul 2025 / 36 months |
| Funder(s) / Co-Funder(s) | DEBRA Austria |
| Research area | Symptom prevention & relief |
Project details
Short lay summary
Junctional epidermolysis bullosa (JEB) is a severe form of disease, causing painful skin blistering and inflammation. Effective treatments for pain relief in EB are lacking. Unfortunately, we currently rely on drugs with harmful side effects, including chronic itch, addiction and pain. We need to understand how pain arises in JEB and to be able to test novel pain-relieving therapy in newly developed disease model mice:
Aim 1. Determine whether a new JEB mouse model has pain similar to what we observe in patients. We will assess pain behaviour in these mice and measure activation of pain-sensing nerve cells.
Aim 2. Understand how pain arises in JEB. We will study pain-sensing nerve cells in the skin of JEB mice and patients. We will also study how the immune system may drive pain.
Aim 3. We will test new treatments for EB pain, including existing treatments and a new drug that can silence pain-sensing nerve cells.