Professor: Anesthesiology and Pharmacology
Director: Anesthesiology Research Laboratory
Editor in Chief:  Frontiers Journal of Pain Research
University of California, San Diego

Tony L. Yaksh, PhD obtained his PhD from Purdue University (1971). He served in the U.S. Army in the Biomedical Laboratory at Edgewood Arsenal, MD (1971-73), was a research scientist in the School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin (1973-76) and an Associate Research Scientist in the Anatomy Department at University College London with Pat Wall. (1976-77).

Dr. Yaksh joined UCSD in 1988 as Professor and Vice Chairman for Research in the Department of Anesthesiology and Professor of Pharmacology. His research has been on the biology of pain processing. His work on the brain and spinal action of opiates and later adrenergic agonists, lipid mediators, capsaicinoids, COX inhibitors and calcium channel blockers outlined the complexity of spinal nociceptive processing and pointed to a variety of drug targets for spinal drug development. His studies have provided a basis for understanding the pharmacology of the spinal gating of pain information. He is an expert on issues related to spinal drug kinetics and the evaluation of the safety of spinal agents. He has published more than 780 papers and edited 6 texts. His work has garnered over 46,000 citations in over 26,000 papers. He has been a mentor to more than 100 postdoctoral fellows and trainees. He has been funded consistently by NIH since 1977 and twice has been a Javitz award recipient.

Sessions at Neurovations Events

2016 Napa Pain Conference

  • 2nd Annual Legacy Lecture

2016 Neuromodulation: The Science

  • Safety Assessment of Spinal Therapeutics

Awards

  • 2016  NPC Legacy Lecture, Napa Pain Conference
  • 2016  Lifetime Achievement Award, NANS
  • 1999  Chancellor’s Associates Faculty Excellence Award in Research, UCSD
  • 1998  Outstanding Contributions to Pain Medicine, AAPM
  • 1998  Joris De Castro Memorial Lecture, Belgian Society of Anaesthesia and Reanimation
  • 1996  Emmanuel Papper Lecturer, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital
  • 1995  Excellence in Research, ASA