The clinical pain service works closely with Dr. Ru-Rong Ji, chief of pain research and director of the Center for Translational Pain Medicine (CTPM). This collaboration facilitates both the clinical and research missions, providing a strong clinical arm to facilitate translational research development. The team is defining the mechanisms that are involved in the transition of acute to chronic pain, the development of non-opioid analgesic therapies, and projects to further the mechanistic understanding of drivers of chronic pain after nerve injury. This multi-pronged approach addresses two simultaneous public health challenges: the treatment of 100 million American adults suffering from chronic pain and a devastating opioid epidemic.