The COOL thing about TRPM8

A New Hampshire native, Dr. Colburn obtained his B.S. in Physiology from Michigan State University followed by a Ph.D. in Pharmacology & Toxicology from Dartmouth. While at Dartmouth, Dr Colburn also served as an Instructor in Anesthesiology where he made important contributions toward deciphering the role of glial-neuronal interactions in sensitizing the nervous system following nerve injury. He furthered this neuroimmune
line of enquiry in his post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Cambridge in England.

He joined Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical R & D in 2000 where he headed the in vivo section of the Analgesics Drug Discovery Team. His group was largely responsible for new target identification and validation, as well as, preclinical pharmacologic characterization of novel analgesic candidate compounds. Since 2004, Dr. Colburn has led a Discovery program elucidating fundamental properties of the Cold/Menthol receptor, TRPM8. His team was the first to show that TRPM8 is a key detector of environmental cool/cold temperatures in mammals and that this ion channel plays a pivotal role in the genesis of neuropathic cold allodynia.

He and his colleagues have discovered a number of small molecule TRPM8 antagonists that may ultimately provide therapeutic relief for those afflicted by an inordinate sensitivity to cold. Dr. Colburn has actively contributed in the field for over 2 decades. He has 35 scientific papers, book chapters, and patents which have been cited in the literature more than 1200 times.