| | |

Joyce A. DeLeo, Ph.D.

Contact Information:

Professional Interests:

Neuropharmacology; Neuroimmunology: Mechanisms that lead to chronic pain with a focus on spinal neuroimmune responses. Neuropharmacology; Neuroimmunology: Mechanisms that lead to chronic pain with a focus on spinal neuroimmune responses. Central neuroimmune activation and neuroinflammation play a key role in generating chronic pain. Utilization of molecular, cellular, and in vivo behavioral pharmacological approaches with the ultimate goal to develop novel, non-addictive therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of chronic neuropathic and low back pain. For more information, please visit The NeuroImmunology of Chronic Pain Laboratory.

Dr. DeLeo received her B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from the State University of New York at Albany in 1982. She decided to pursue a career in pharmacology and was accepted into the graduate program at University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (O.U.). She did much of her pre-doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Martinsried, W. Germany under a Fulbright scholarship investigating the effect of cerebral ischemia on an electrophysiological hippocampal slice preparation and the pharmacological intervention of in vivo ischemia. She received her Ph.D. from O.U. in January 1988 and accepted a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard University, Department of Neuroscience, where she was studying the effects of neonatal hypoxia and seizure susceptibility. She then came to Dartmouth as a post-doctoral fellow in the Anesthesia Research Laboratory and was appointed to a faculty position as Instructor of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology in July 1989.

The mission of Dr. DeLeo's laboratory is to create a better understanding of central nervous system mechanisms that lead to chronic pain including neuropathic and low back pain. This knowledge will translate into development of new, effective approaches for treatment and even prevention of these chronic pain syndromes. The pain that follows peripheral nerve or root injury is chronic and consistently refractory to available treatments and analgesics. These neuropathic and low back pain syndromes include deafferentation pain, HIV, diabetic, cancer and ischemic neuropathies, phantom limb pain, trigeminal neuralgia, postherpetic neuralgias, nerve injury caused by surgery or trauma and low back pain due to herniated discs (radicular pain). Neuropathic and radicular pain are not only chronic and intractable, but also debilitating and cause extreme physical, psychological and social distress.

Courses Taught:

Pharmacology 130: Graduate Pharmacology
Pharmacology 215: Medical Pharmacology
Pharmacology 216: Introduction to Medical Pharmacology
Pharmacology 217: Organ-Based Pharmacology
New Directions 115: Neurosciences
PEMM 101/102: Graduate Core Course in Experimental and Molecular Medicine I & II

Grant Information:

5 RO1(DA11276-09) DeLeo (PI) 7/15/97 – 5/31/11
NIH/NIDA
Alternatives to Opioids for Chronic Pain: Part IV
The major goal of this project is to determine the role of proinflammatory cytokines in neuropathic pain following peripheral nerve injury.

5 RO1(AR44757-06) DeLeo (PI) 9/3/97 – 7/31/07
NIH/NIAMS
LBP with Radiculopathy: An Inflammatory Response
The major goals of this project are to determine the role of neuroimmune activation in low back pain associated with radiculopathy.

T32 NS051176-01A1 DeLeo (Co-Director) 07/01/06 - 06/30/11
NIH (NINDS)
Translational Neuroscience Postdoctoral Training Program
The major goals of this project are to provide an additional pathway so the trainees may learn necessary skills to engage in basic science research and be better prepared to facilitate research discoveries into future treatments.
Role: (Co-Director)

Role of Infiltrating CD4+ T-Lymphocytes in Neuropathic Pain
NIH KO-1 Mentored award
Mentee: Ling Cao, MD/PhD

Role of Propentofylline to module astrocytic glutamate receptors
Lab Innovation Program, Elan Pharmaceuticals

Morphine induced P2X4 receptor expression: Implications for opioid tolerance
F30 DA024933-01
Mentee: Ryan Horvath, MD/PhD candidate

Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) 7/1/01-6/30/06
Green (PI), DeLeo (Molecular Biology Core Director)
NIH/NCRR
Immune Mechanisms Controlling Inflammation and Cancer
The major goals of this project are to study immune mechanisms in controlling inflammation and cancer.