Research summary
Animal health, welfare and pain management are at the heart of veterinary medicine. But developing new drugs to manage pain is challenging because it requires researchers to induce pain when working with animal models—a process that comes with ethical considerations, technical challenges and costs. As Canada Research Chair in Metrology of Bioactive Molecule and Target Discovery, Dr. Francis Beaudry is developing new strategies that will transform the way new pain medications are developed.
He and his research team are characterizing the molecular signatures of animals who suffer from chronic pain and identifying new bioactive molecules and their targets to design innovative pain relief strategies. Molecular fingerprinting for precision therapies—a technique that is at the heart of precision medicine—is a departure from the “one-size-fits-all” traditional approach, and incorporates individual patients’ molecular profiles. Ultimately, this research will lead to innovative treatments to treat chronic pain in animals.