Science Reporting
I read the following short article in the paper today: Protein shown to relieve pain better than morphine Molecular and cell physiology professor Mark Zylka led a study on the role of prostatic acid phosphatase protein in chronic pain relief. The study discovered that the PAP protein converts adenosine triphosphate, the neurons which cause pain, into adenosine, eliminating pain. Zylka and researchers from UNC and the University of Helsinki are the first to conduct a study on the protein’s involvement in pain-sensing neurons. PAP proved eight times as effective as morphine in pain relief, and can be effective for up to three days. PAP, like morphine, can be injected into the body, but the study hopes to formulate the protein into a pill. It was obviously incorrect since ATP (adenosine triphosphate) isn't a type of neuron. So I looked into the research of Mark Zylka, a professor here at UNC, to see what the article should have said. Over on Science Daily there was a more complete su...