Federal Grant Award Summary

Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center received a $243,000 Project Grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), awarded July 15, 2026, with completion targeted for June 30, 2028. The award funds translational biomedical research to elucidate the cellular and immune mechanisms underlying chronic post-surgical pain (CPSP) in adolescents—a condition affecting 14.5–38% of pediatric surgical patients and associated with depression, disability, opioid misuse, and substantial healthcare costs. The research leverages banked serum and peripheral blood mononuclear cell samples from pediatric surgical cohorts and employs induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived sensory neurons to model immune-neural interactions in CPSP development.

The project delivers mechanistic research outputs through two primary research aims. Aim 1 examines immune dysregulation by comparing in vitro cytokine responses and immune cell differentiation in peripheral blood mononuclear cells exposed to serum from CPSP versus non-CPSP patients, with correlation to longitudinal in vivo immune profiles. The research tests the central hypothesis that serum from CPSP patients is inherently proinflammatory, promoting immune cell dysregulation and sensory neuron sensitization. By integrating experimental, clinical, immunology, and neurobiology data through rigorous analysis, this award produces translational research outputs addressing a critical gap in understanding immune-neural interactions in post-surgical pain chronification, with potential applications toward prevention and treatment strategy development for adolescent CPSP.