Grégory Scherrer, PharmD, PhD
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Dr. Grégory Scherrer is a Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) in the Departments of Cell Biology and Physiology, of Pharmacology, and in the UNC Neuroscience Center. Dr. Scherrer received his PharmD and his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Strasbourg, France, under the supervision of Prof. Brigitte Kieffer. He then completed two postdoctoral trainings at UCSF and at Columbia University, studying the neurobiology of pain, and the physiology of the spinal cord dorsal horn, in Prof. Allan Basbaum and Prof. Amy MacDermott laboratories, respectively. In 2012, Dr. Scherrer joined the faculty at Stanford University where he was an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Anesthesiology and of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, and as a member of the Stanford Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, until he joined UNC-CH in September 2019. His laboratory investigates the organization of the neural circuits and the molecular mechanisms that underlie pain perception and opioid analgesia. His team studies the sensory, emotional, and cognitive dimensions of pain experience, and both the analgesic and side effects of opioids including addiction and respiratory depression. Dr. Scherrer’s laboratory uses experimental approaches that include molecular and cellular biology techniques, genetics and multiomics, light and electron microscopy, neural circuit tracing, electrophysiology, recording and opto/chemogenetic modulation of neural activity, and behavioral assays. Dr. Scherrer’s long-term goal is to build on novel knowledge on the functional organization of pain and opioid-sensitive neural circuits to develop innovative therapeutics to treat pain and opioid use disorders effectively and safely.