Dr. Richard Carliss

My primary project is the development of a non-opioid drug to provide new pharmaceuticals for the management of pain. With 29 years of research experience in the pharmaceutical industry, I have recently founded a start-up company called Chorda Pharma, LLC. This company is developing a novel, nonburning capsaicin for the treatment of pain. Capsaicin is the molecule in chili peppers that makes hot peppers hot. Capsaicin has been used in dozens of commercial products, as a topical pain reliever. One application can produce months of pain relief. However, the molecule also produces dermatological burning which discourages patients from its use.  

Alternatively, we have chemically modified the capsaicin molecule to a nonburning form that we will try to implement as an alternative medication to opioids for pain relief. 

A secondary research project is an ongoing analysis of telomere length in a disease state called osteogenesis imperfecta (OI).  Osteogenesis Imperfecta, or brittle bone disease, is caused by dominant mutations in specific genes directly responsible for the malformation of the collagen matrix in bone. Telomeres are the protective end caps on chromosomes that shorten with cell division and from environmental insults. If they are abnormally shortened in the DNA of OI victims, this would suggest an interaction between specifically-mutated genes in OI and the shortening dynamic associated with telomeres.  

I am using PCR to examine telomere length in Type II OI patients, where the collagen deficiency occurs in utero.  Thus cell division would be minimally affected by environmental insults.  Demonstrating that short TL is associated with Type II OI, a lethal form of OI would indicate the presence of a novel DNA regulatory pathway between COL1A1/COL1A2 genes and telomeres.