My point is that high quality basic research leads to these kinds of outcomes, but it sometimes takes decades. This is what we are totally losing at NIH right now, and from what I can see, we are losing it around the world, because, well, rich people need to be rich(er)

You are correct. In the past, it was okay to say that the application was funded because it received a 4th percentile and the payline was the 10th percentile.

Now additional justification must be provided.

But, in the past, if a 4th %ile app was not funded, documentation was required. Now, nothing

Also see this nice story from our news colleagues at UT Dallas and BBS: news.utdallas.edu/health-medic...

This project was about 10 years of work, and we almost got derailed many times due to many technical hurdles. The whole team stuck with it and we learned so much. Really an amazing experience from start to finish with deep appreciation to folks in my and in Dalva lab.

I also think this could be a very interesting way to improve the therapeutic window for targeting the NMDAR in pain. Lots still to learn, but I think some very exciting times ahead for the confluence (using my John Madden voice) of VLK, EPhBs, and NMDAR.

It amazes me that we are still learning fundamentally new details about a plasticity mechanism that you can tie all the way back to the work of Melzak in some of the earliest pain plasticity papers.

The thing that I love about this project is that we have discovered what I think is a new paradigm for pain plasticity involving a synaptically-released kinase called VLK, but targeting the OG pain plasticity receptor, the NMDAR.

I have also gotten some of these emails, mostly related to new theories of pain or revelations about pain. I have taken the liberty to not respond.