Join us online for the Society’s 2026 Sharpey-Schafer Prize Lecture for Translational Physiology, given by Professor Stephen Waxman. This annual lecture has a focus on the translatability of physiological research outside academia.

Huxley’s science fiction:  From the squid giant axon to non-addictive medications for pain

Molecular neuroscience is making exciting strides, and these are translating into real-world advances in the clinical domain.

This is clearly illustrated by the arc of progress, beginning with the Hodgkin-Huxley discoveries of 1952, that has now reached the world of medicine via development of new non-opiate pain medications that target selected Nav and Kv channels to address the societal need for new medications that provide pain relief without the potential for addiction.

About Professor Stephen Waxman

Professor Stephen Waxman is the Bridget Flaherty Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience and Pharmacology at Yale University, where he served as Chairman of Neurology from 1986 until 2009.   He founded Yale’s Neuroscience & Regeneration Research Center and has been its director since 1988.  Prior to Yale, he held faculty positions at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.

Dr. Waxman’s research capitalizes on the “molecular revolution” to develop new therapies that restore function after nervous system injury.  His early papers in Science, PNAS and Nature defined the ion channel architecture of nerve fibers, and demonstrated its importance for axonal conduction.  He discovered the sodium channel plasticity that supports recovery of impulse conduction in demyelinated axons, thereby explaining the molecular basis for remissions in Multiple Sclerosis.

Dr. Waxman has been a pioneer in unraveling the roles of sodium channels – tiny molecular batteries — in pain signaling, and his work has led to new therapies.   Using molecular genetics, stem-cell models, computation methods and biophysics, he made a molecule-to-man translational leap from laboratory to humans that demonstrated the roles of sodium channels Nav1.7, Nav1.8 and Nav1.9 in human pain.  His research has identified ion channel mutations as causes of pain in peripheral neuropathy.  He has used atomic-level modeling to advance pharmacogenomics in a study, accompanied by a JAMA editorial stating “there are few examples in clinical medicine where molecular reasoning has been rewarded with comparable success”.   He is now pinpointing “pain resilience” genes.  New non-addictive pain medications, based largely on his work, are in or headed toward clinical trials, and the first has achieved FDA approval.

Waxman has served on multiple editorial boards including Journal of Physiology,  Brain, Annals of Neurology, Trends in Molecular Medicine,  and Nature Reviews Neurology.  He is the Editor of The Neuroscientist.  His trainees lead research teams throughout the world.

Dr. Waxman’s many honors include the Dystel Prize and Wartenberg Award (Amer. Acad. of Neurology), the Middleton Award and Magnuson Award (Veterans Admin), and the Soriano Award (Amer. Neurol. Assn).  He was honored in 2009 with The Physiological Society’s Annual Prize, an accolade he shares with his heroes, Nobel Prize laureates Andrew Huxley, John Eccles, and Alan Hodgkin.   Most recently, he received the Julius Axelrod Prize (Society for Neuroscience).