Dr. Michael Salter
Head of the Program in Neurosciences & Mental Health
Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto

Dr. Michael Salter is one of Ontario’s leading pain researchers, exploring the very genesis of pain at the molecular level. His work is opening new doors to our understanding of cell-to-cell communication throughout the body’s nervous system. And his discoveries offer new hope of relief for millions of chronic pain sufferers around the world.

Chronic pain - pain that lasts long after the initial injury or illness, or pain that appears to have no cause at all – is debilitating. Chronic pain sufferers are often stigmatized by a health care system that is virtually helpless to pinpoint the source of their suffering.

Salter’s research is shedding new light on the genetic, molecular and cellular questions about why pain becomes chronic and how chronic pain information is stored and processed in the brain. The goal is a new generation of drugs that can target and treat chronic pain and, in some instances, even repair damaged nerves.

Salter can trace his curiosity about the origins of pain to a single lecture from his medical school days. The speaker expounded on a popular theory of pain at the time, contending it was processed in the spinal cord. “That seemed to me to be a pretty weird thing,” he recalls. Details of the theory that provided the original spark that ignited Salter’s career have been revised, and in his hunt for the key to how pain works, he’s helping unravel the mysteries of diseases like Alzheimer’s and diabetes.

Salter wears a lot of hats. He leads the Program in Neurosciences and Mental Health and holds the Canada Research Chair in Neuroplasticity and Pain at SickKids. He is also a Professor of Physiology at the University of Toronto and Director of the University of Toronto Centre for the Study of Pain. Salter has received numerous awards including the Early Career Investigator Award and the Distinguished Career Investigator Award from the Canadian Pain Society.  Salter is the youngest person to receive the Distinguished Career Award and the only person to have received both.

From his lab in the core of Toronto’s Discovery District, Salter conducts innovative studies on molecular and cellular mechanisms of neuroplasticity - the brain's ability to alter neural connections to adapt normally and to compensate for injury or disease. His landmark work has led to a deeper understanding of exactly how synaptic transmissions in the central nervous system are regulated by biochemical processes that happen when neurons and cells known as glia (Greek for "glue") interact.

And working with colleagues at SickKids, other scientists in the Discovery District and from around the world, Salter has made critical inroads to promising new treatments for such diverse conditions as stroke, epilepsy, memory and even learning disorders.

In February 2009, Salter and SickKids collaborator Dr. Roderick McInnes reported on findings that could change the way we treat people with learning and memory defects. Salter and McInnes found a protein called Neto 1 that they determined is critical for how nerve cells communicate with each other and how that affects learning and memory in mice. Neto 1-deficient mice were given a drug that is currently being clinically tested in patients with Alzheimer's disease, and learning and memory were restored to normal.

The Neto 1 finding was just the latest in a long list for Salter. In 2005, he and researchers at Université Laval discovered a protein that plays a major role in chronic pain.  And in 2008, Salter’s team at SickKids developed a novel peptide for treating two types of chronic pain by blocking a protein interaction inside nerve cells in the central nervous system. This research and other ongoing studies promise to alter the way chronic pain is diagnosed and treated.

Salter says “Effective pain diagnosis is nearly as big a challenge as developing effective pain therapeutics.” That’s evident in his leading roles in organizations that promote pain research, education and training. He co-founded the U of T Centre for the Study of Pain, a multidisciplinary centre of excellence in pain research and education. The centre brings together 40 pain researchers and academics from the faculties of medicine, nursing, dentistry and pharmacy. Salter also heads a Canadian Institutes of Health Research program, focusing on training the next generation of pain researchers. As a director of the Canadian Pain Coalition, Salter works at the front line with pain patient groups, health care professionals and scientists.

These days Salter is doing what many scientists are loath to consider. He and collaborators founded startup biotech companies to take their discoveries to the marketplace.  Salter laughs that a contribution of his to one of the companies was its name “and a $200 investment. The drug we’re testing works by blocking the production of a molecule called nitric oxide, the symbol of which is N-O. The drug works by preventing nerve cell death. So I suggested No-NO, and they loved it, so that’s the name: NoNO Inc.”NoNO Inc. is developing therapies for treating stroke, trauma to the nervous system, and pain. There is reason for “extensive optimism” for NoNO’s progress, he says, although it can take eight to 10 years after an initial scientific discovery such as he and his colleagues made before a drug comes to market. The other startup, Afference Therapeutics, is developing methods of treating diabetes based on earlier discoveries of Salter and his colleagues.

Salter’s work has attracted a lot of public attention, both popular and scientific. His work has been featured on Canadian media from TV Ontario’s Studio 2 to CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks, and internationally on BBC News and Scientific American. His work has been featured in elite scientific and medical journals like Nature, The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine and The Medical Post.

At a Glance

The researcher: Dr. Michael Salter leads the program in Neurosciences and Mental Health and holds the Canada Research Chair in Neuroplasticity and Pain at SickKids. He is also a Professor of Physiology at the University of Toronto and director of the University of Toronto Centre for the Study of Pain.

The Breakthrough:  Dr. Michael Salter is one of Ontario’s leading pain researchers, exploring the very genesis of pain at the molecular level. Salter’s research explores the genetic, molecular and cellular questions about why pain becomes chronic and how chronic pain information is stored and processed in the brain. The goal is a new generation of drugs that can target and treat chronic pain and, in some instances, even repair damaged nerves.

Worth Repeating:  “Effective pain diagnosis is nearly as big a challenge as developing effective pain therapeutics.”

Connect With the Researcher:  http://www.sickkids.ca/AboutSickKids/Directory/People/S/Michael-Salter.html