Bench to Public Health: Pain Research & Management

We hoped your enjoyed the webinar on pain research and management featuring a faculty panel from the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. Panelists presented cutting-edge work, addressing the biological, social, and systemic drivers of pain. This discussion highlighted strategies to improve pain outcomes and equity in care, translate research into practice, and reduce harms associated with opioid use.  The program featured welcome remarks by Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine Interim Dean Hee-Young Park, PhD.

Date: Thursday, Feb. 12, 2026

For any questions about this event, contact cameddev@bu.edu.

Panel Moderator:

Venetia Zachariou, PhD

Edward Avedisian Professor and Chair of Pharmacology, Physiology & Biophysics, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Venetia (Vanna) Zachariou is the Edward Avedisian Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology & Biophysics at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian  School of Medicine. She also serves as Co-Director of a T32 training program in Biomolecular Pharmacology. Prior to joining Boston University, Dr. Zachariou was a Professor in the Department of Neurosciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Dr. Zachariou obtained her PhD in Pharmacology from the Medical College of Georgia and conducted her postdoctoral training at Yale University in the laboratory of Dr. Marina Picciotto. Her research program applies multidisciplinary approaches to dissect network- and cell-type–specific mechanisms involved in chronic pain, depression, and addiction.

Studies in her laboratory have focused on: (1) understanding intracellular mechanisms underlying the actions of pain-alleviating drugs within components of the mesolimbic system; (2) investigating G protein–signaling mechanisms associated with pain maintenance and the actions of opioid analgesics; and (3) characterizing epigenetic and transcriptional adaptations associated with prolonged neuropathic pain and identifying novel targets for chronic pain management. Her research has been funded by multiple NIH and foundation grants.

Dr. Zachariou is currently a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and a Fellow of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. She serves on the editorial boards of Molecular Pharmacology, Biological Psychiatry, and the British Journal of Pharmacology, and acts as a reviewing editor for Science Signaling. She currently serves as a Council Member for the Association of Medical School Pharmacology Chairs.

Panelists:

Daniel Alford, MD, MPH

Professor of Medicine and the Associate Dean of the Center for Continuing Education at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine; General Internal Medicine Physician, Boston Medical Center

For over 30 years, he has distinguished himself as a nationally recognized clinician educator and scholar. He has received numerous federal and state grants for curricula and program development and evaluation and has over 100 publications. He has received teaching and service awards from the AMA, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence (AOTOD) and the Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance use and Addiction (AMERSA). He is the course director of the Boston University Safer and more Competent Opioid Prescribing Education (SCOPE of Pain) program, which has trained over 309,000 clinicians across the country. He is the director of the NIDA-funded Chief Resident Immersion Training (CRIT) in Addiction He is also the principal investigator for the HRSA-funded SAFEST Choice Program – a national ECHO® learning collaborative focused on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD).

Marc LaRochelle, MD, MPH

Headshot of Dr. LarochelleAssociate Professor of Medicine, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine; General Internal Medicine Physician, Boston Medical Center

Marc LaRochelle is a general internist and clinical investigator specializing in addiction medicine at BMC and an assistant professor of medicine at Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. LaRochelle’s clinical and research interests focus on the safety of opioid prescribing and the recognition and treatment of opioid use disorders. As a health services researcher, LaRochelle aims to leverage insights from large data sources and translate the findings into interventions that improve the quality and value of health care delivered. His special interests are Primary Care and Addiction Medicine.

Dr. LaRochelle received his MD from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and a masters in public health from Harvard University. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore MD, and completed a fellowship in General Medicine and Primary Care at Harvard Medical School.

Travis Rotterman, PhD

Travis Rotterdam leaning against a brik wall outside.

Ralph Edwards Career Development Professor & Assistant Professor of Pharmacology, Physiology & Biophysics, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Travis Rotterman earned his PhD in Neuroscience at Emory University in Atlanta Georgia where his research focused on neuroinflammatory mechanisms driving spinal synaptic reorganization after peripheral nerve injury. He then joined the Georgia Institute of Technology as a postdoctoral fellow to study plasticity of spinal motor networks after nerve injury and devised strategies to preserve circuit connectivity otherwise lost to injury. In April 2025, Travis joined the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biophysics at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor. His research continues to explore sensorimotor integration in the context of peripheral and central nervous system injury, as well as in the context of inherited neuropathies such as Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.

Daniel Taub, PhD

Assistant Professor of Pharmacology, Physiology & Biophysics, Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Daniel Taub, PhD’s work focuses on elucidating the genetic mechanisms and neural circuits involved in pain with the goal of using novel neuromodulatory technologies for therapeutics. He obtained his B.A. from Hampshire College in Neuroscience and Endocrinology, a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Boston University, and completed his postdoctoral studies at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School with Clifford J. Woolf. His lab has recently developed a new model for how pain is perceived in the brain with the implication that subtypes of pain (burning, stabbing, etc.) can be effectively treated with neuromodulation in a non-addictive manner.