Dr. Josee Guindon - Faculty Page

Research Statement

The Guindon lab investigate using behavioral, pharmacological, immunohistochemical and molecular biology to better understand the different mechanism involved in pain pathways. How to modulate pain by using physiological processes as well as reference compounds and endocannabinoid modulators is one of my main interest. Indeed, the use of exercise as a physiological process to modulate pain is one of my interest. The use of different pain models such as acute, inflammatory and neuropathic pain models and the combination of known treatment with cannabinoid compounds to alleviate pain is another area of my expertise.

I have also recently investigated the physiological processes involved in kidney protection following chemotherapy treatment using different pretreatments (sodium bicarbonate, vitamin c) that seems to improve chemotherapeutic agent nephrotoxic side effects while preserving the chemotherapy-induced neuropathy. Indeed, chemotherapy-induced neuropathy is dose and time limiting. Thus, improving nephrotoxic side effects will enable us to evaluate long term neuropathic pain and study different clinically relevant treatments could alleviate chemotherapy-induced pain.

Finally, I am recently working on the determination of whether coordinated action of JNK signaling pathways is responsible for tolerance to the analgesic effects of clinically relevant compounds in inflammatory and chemotherapy-induced neuropathic pain models. The clinical implications of better understanding the different mechanisms behind analgesic tolerance is trivial for physicians and patients.