Researching Solutions to the Opiod Crisis

 Jack Rogers, Verrazzano Class of 2021, completed major in Biology with minors in Biochemistry and Chemistry

My experience with the capstone project has been rather interesting to say the least. Starting out in the Verrazano program, I knew I wanted to make a difference by doing research on pressing health issues but did not know what it entailed or how to move forward with finding a mentor. Fortunately, my project ended up finding me after a chance encounter with Dr. Poget while I was volunteering at the Spring 2018 Undergraduate Research Conference. After some brief discussions with him and two of his undergraduates, I found that Dr. Poget’s project, if successful, could potentially combat the opioid crisis, which was still prevalent in many people’s minds (especially on Staten Island). I was especially interested in the unorthodox but sensible solution Dr. Poget was working on to address this problem, which investigates potential sources of non-addictive pain therapeutics.

To briefly go into more detail about this, Dr. Poget’s overall project looks at both the structure and function of both potassium and sodium channels in the human body as well as various natural toxins derived from tarantulas, scorpions, cone snails, etc. that interact with these channels. The way Dr. Poget initially explained the overall premise of his project to me was that some of these channels are linked to pain perception, which are then activated or deactivated by interaction with the toxins these animals use to capture their prey. Therefore, some of these toxins that deactivate the channels (thus eliminating their pain response) could be used to produce non-addictive pain therapeutics for use in patients with chronic pain if the structure and interactions of both the channel and toxin were known. With this in mind, I decided to try to determine the structure of the fourth repeated voltage-sensing domain in the human sodium channel Nav1.7 (Nav1.7D4) with the hope of utilizing this information to design non-addictive pain therapeutics.

This project was nearly identical to one already being performed by a PhD student, who I ended up working very closely with. Because of this, he became my mentor, teaching me the practical and theoretical skills I used in the lab, as well as advising on what steps the project should take and how to address problems that arose. While it was initially difficult and stressful to manage my time between lab and my classes (especially organic chemistry), I eventually became comfortable in both roles. After about a year, however, he graduated, leaving me in a role I imagine being quite like that of a PhD student. While I still received help when necessary from other PhD students, I was left to my own devices in terms of where the project would go.

While I definitely enjoyed this sense of freedom and relative independence, it was sadly cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the unorthodox nature of my research experience, I can say that I found the overall experience incredibly enjoyable and satisfying on both a personal and professional level.