Study & Teaching
Pain is the main reason why people seek medical advice. It is often the starting point of differential diagnosis and/or accompanies the healing process. We therefore try to incorporate our pain expertise into teaching in a variety of ways. This includes "classical" lecture formats both in the pre-clinic and in specialised clinical semesters.
Science is in part the highly emotional collective struggle for new, objectified knowledge. In order to best experience both the fun and the content of constantly expanding science collectively, we consider direct exchange "one-to-one" or in very small groups to be very important. This is the best way to convey scientific creativity, emotionality and, of course, scientific knowledge.
Cross-section ready 14 - Pain
Based on the preclinical courses, we have designed a block of courses that reviews the physiological and anatomical basics as well as pain conditions from simple nociception through common diseases such as migraine and tumor pain. The basic mechanistic understanding of the changing therapeutic pharmacological and psychological interventions is particularly important to us. These perspectives accompany with gender aspects of pain and current research approaches.
Lecture Opioid Therapy in the Competence Field Tumour Biology
Besides anti-inflammatory drugs, opioid therapy still represents a central therapeutic approach. This class of highly potent but controversial compounds, must be understood in detail in order to use them in the difficult environment of tumor therapy. We support the pharmacology department, which has conceived a comprehensive and in-depth series of lectures for understanding tumour biology, in one of its lectures.
Lecture Sensory Physiology and Nociception for the B.Sc. Applied Midwifery Science
Fundamentals of sensory perception are important not least for the field of midwifery. To this end, basic physiological mechanisms of neuronal stimulus reception and transmission are taught in these lectures. In addition, dealing with pain is an essential aspect of midwifery. This sensory-physiological aspect is therefore given special emphasis.
Seminar Neurodegenerative Diseases
Within the Master's programme Drug Design and Development, jointly run by the Medical Faculty of the UzK together with the University of Applied Sciences Cologne, we elaborate and compare basic physiological mechanisms of specific neurodegenerative diseases and therapeutic interventions.
Scientific block practical course: Quantitative microscopy
As part of the Neuroscience Master's programme, the two-week block practical introduces different approaches to quantifying microscopy images. For this purpose, primary and secondary culture techniques, immunocytochemistry, stimulation in multi-well plate format, HCS-based image acquisition, software-based object identification and quantification as well as background knowledge on different microscopy methods up to research approaches in pain research are taught.
Scientific internships (Research Track)
During the semester usually on Wednesdays starting at 4pm, we teach the basic techniques of our laboratory in small groups: spinal ganglia preparation, primary cell culture, immunocytochemical staining as well as first experiences with the stimulation of these sensitive neurons.
Master's thesis and doctorate
We offer projects from 6 months full-time work (exceptions prove the rule) and full doctoral projects in projects that arise on a daily basis. Participation in the "Scientific Internship" is usually a prerequisite. Projects usually begin in September/October or February/March. Please contact us early if you are interested.
Basics of scientific work
The growth of therapeutic options and the further development of therapeutic approaches is enormous. What are the limits of provability through science? What is a glossy brochure from a pharmaceutical representative trying to tell me? What does good science look like? The basics of how new medical developments come about must be familiar to every doctor. In this basic introductory session, we will approach some of these aspects, especially from the perspective of basic scientific research.
How to write a paper
Well, at the end of scientific work, the motivation, the goal, the methodology, the results and the conclusions drawn from them have to be communicated to the critical public in different formats. Here we develop an initial sensitivity towards the written word and try out our own texts.
