Neurosurgery Pain Research Institute

The Neurosurgery Pain Research Institute was created to investigate controlling, preventing and eliminating neurosurgically related pain. There is a tremendous need to establish a scientific rationale for improving the understanding of chronic pain, and devising new approaches to alleviating and preventing it.

This Institute will perform basic scientific and clinical research into the mechanisms of different human chronic pain states as a basis for rational treatment of chronic pain. Our research is focused on neurological diseases that trigger pain and pain as a result of neurosurgical procedures. 


$75 Million in Gifts Creates Neurosurgery Pain Research Center at Hopkins

More than 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, some like patient Bob Salathe who had extreme neuropathic pain. Transformational gifts from an anonymous couple established the Johns Hopkins Neurosurgery Pain Research Institute and two named professorships, held by Allan Belzberg, MD, FRCSC – who performed the DREZ surgery which alleviated Salathe’s pain – and by Michael Caterina, MD, PhD, whose lab focuses on sentry neurons in the skin and other tissues that trigger the sensation of pain.

Programs and Research

Neurosurgery Pain Research Institute Scholar Award

The Neurosurgery Pain Research Scholar Awards are designed to fund students, postdoctoral fellows or residents for pain research training under the direction of a Johns Hopkins Department of Neurosurgery faculty member for one to two years.


Conquering Pain | A 40-Year Journey

A 1976 car crash left Ohio resident David Kiessling suffering from devastating nerve damage and searing pain. An online search led him to neurosurgeon  and the , where Kiessling’s journey of recovery is helping researchers better understand pain.

Kara Lockwood

Administrative Program Coordinator of the Neurosurgery Pain Research Institute

Contact Us

The Johns Hopkins Neurosurgery Pain Research Institute
To Control, Prevent and Eliminate Pain
600 N. Wolfe Street
Phipps Bldg, Room 454
Baltimore, MD 21287
Fax: 410-614-0478
Email: [email protected]