BLAISER Minority & Border Health Disparities Lecture

The Border Latino & American Indian Summer Exposure to Research (BLAISER) Program at the University of Arizona Health Sciences presents:

“Can We Design a New, Non-Opioid, Pain Drug?”

Rajesh Khanna, PhD, Professor of Anesthesiology, MD/PhD Program, Medical Student Research Program (MSRP), Neuroscience - GIDP and Pharmacology, UA College of Medicine – Tucson, and member, BIO5 Institute and Center on Aging, UA Health Sciences.

WHEN: Tuesday, June 18, 2019 | 9–10 a.m.
WHERE: Drachman Hall A114

Lecture/Video Recorded
This event will be archived for later viewing on the UAHS BioCommunications website at this link: https://tinyurl.com/MBHDLS-Rajesh-Khanna

About the Speaker
Rajesh Khanna, PhD, has a 20-year career in neuroscience and pharmacology. He was a doctoral student in the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto, Canada. He was a research fellow in the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles; assistant staff scientist, Toronto Western Research Institute, Toronto; and assistant professor, Indiana University School of Medicine. He currently is a professor of pharmacology and anesthesiology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine - Tucson and a professor of neuroscience with the UA Graduate Interdisciplinary Program and a professor with the UA BIO5 Institute. His research intersects pain and neurodegenerative diseases and is focused on understanding mechanisms and developing strategies to allosterically regulate functions of key ion channels implicated in physiology and pathophysiology of pain and neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Khanna also is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Regulonix, LLC, an Arizona startup focusing on novel chronic pain therapeutics and innovative biomarker technology development. Dr. Khanna’s research is funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense and the Children’s Tumor Foundation.

Contact: Viridiana Johnson, BLAISER coordinator, viridianaj@medadmin.arizona.edu

About the BLAISER Program
The Border Latino and American Indian Summer Exposure to Research (BLAISER) Program, falls under the Office of the Senior Vice President at the University of Arizona Health Sciences led by Michael D. Dake, MD.

Run in cooperation with the UAHS Office of Diversity and Inclusion, BLAISER is strongly committed to attracting students that represent the diverse population to biomedical research, expose them and make them sensitive to the Health Disparities in Southern of Arizona and the border region. This cutting-edge 10-week, undergraduate research experience provides an extraordinary laboratory training opportunity, pairing junior and senior level student-scholars with preeminent UA Health Sciences researchers. This is a premier research experience for undergraduate students from underrepresented backgrounds arming them with skills to make them competitive and successful in their pursuit of post-secondary education and research.

This annual summer program was created in 2015 to address health disparities in Arizona’s ethnically diverse and fast-growing communities. The inaugural class consisted of 15 students. In 2017, 20 students participated. A maximum of 25 students will be accepted annually. This year's program runs from June 3 to Aug. 6, 2019. Participants gain an extraordinary opportunity to immerse themselves on campus at the University of Arizona Health Sciences. Learn more here: https://uahs.arizona.edu/blaiser

This program is supported in part by Arizona Area Health Education Centers.