Dr. Erin Young is an Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Perioperative Medicine. Her work primarily focuses on identifying the genetic variations and patterns of gene expression that contribute to chronic pain risk across a number of pain types. Her team uses a variety of methodologies to address questions in the lab, including behavioral modeling in animals, analysis of whole tissue and single cell gene expression, RNASeq, SNP genotyping in human subjects, human subjects pain phenotyping and whole genome methods. A critical component of the research program is translation into human subjects, so they often utilize clinical research collaborations to validate and explore genes identified in the animal and molecular lab studies. Her team works not only from the “bench-to-bedside” but also “bedside-to-bench” where they begin with clinically relevant candidate genes and use lab-based methods for determining the mechanisms underlying these genetic effec