Maixner to Speak at Upcoming Distinguished Speaker Installment
The second installment of the Distinguished Speaker Series, presented by the Student Research Group, will feature the School of Dentistry’s Dr. Bill Maixner, director of the Regional Center for Neurosensory Disorders (RCNSD) and co-director of the Pain Management Program. The hour-long event is scheduled for Tuesday, November 20 at 1 p.m. in Room G405 on the ground floor of Koury Oral Health Sciences.
At the event, Maixner will present a lecture entitled Unraveling Complex Persistent Pain Conditions with Genetic Phenotypic Markers. Maixner is well respected for his research and knowledge related to pain, analgesia and pain genetics. He has made numerous presentations at the local, national and international levels, and has had his work published in more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles. Additionally, Maixner is the recipient of several NIH and NIDCR grants, most recently receiving a five-year, $16 million grant to study pain disorders. In addition to his roles at RCNSD and the Pain Management Program, Maixner serves as a professor in the Department of Endodontics, the curriculum in neurobiology, and the Department of Pharmacology at UNC.
Maixner recently provided testimony at the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) hearing entitled Pain in America: Exploring Challenges to Relief. His testimony to the HELP Committee focused on the June 2011 Institute of Medicine report on chronic pain, Relieving Pain in America, as well as current barriers impeding the improvement of care for those with chronic pain disorders. He cited three major barriers to adequately treating chronic pain patients: lack of research funding/efforts for pain disorders; lack of defined education track to produce pain disorder experts; and lack of proportionate care cost reimbursements for patients. During his remarks, Maixner also proposed a number of recommendations to the HELP Committee on how to overcome these obstacles.
The Distinguished Speaker Series is an ongoing project during 2012-13 that will provide various researchers the opportunity to speak to the dental school community.
