Laura Bohn
OXFORD, Miss. – Laura M. Bohn, professor of molecular medicine and neuroscience at The Scripps Research Institute, will deliver the 2019 Coy W. Waller Distinguished Lecture at the University of Mississippi.
The Oct. 11 lecture, “Refining Opioid Receptor Signaling to Improve Therapeutic Potential,” will build on her nearly three decades of research into the impact of opioids on the brain. The School of Pharmacy and its Department of BioMolecular Sciences are hosting this free event at 11 a.m. at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts.
“We are thrilled to have Dr. Bohn deliver this year’s Waller Lecture,” said Kristie Willett, chair of the biomolecular sciences department. “Her work in studying and improving the efficacy of opioid therapies not only coincides with increased public concern about opioids, but is closely related to much of the work we do in the biomolecular sciences department, and in the School of Pharmacy as a whole.”
Bohn’s research focuses on learning how the brain can be better primed to receive the pain therapy of opioids, a process called biased ligand signaling, while simultaneously avoiding some of opioids’ side effects.
“Dr. Bohn is a thought leader in the field of biased ligand signaling and has changed the way that many researchers, including myself, understand opioid pharmacology,” said Jason Paris, assistant professor of pharmacology.
The Coy W. Waller Distinguished Lecture series was established in 2004 to recognize the former director of the Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences’ contributions to the field of pharmaceutics and the School of Pharmacy.