ST. LOUIS, MO — May 23, 2025 — The Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER) has awarded a prestigious Research Fellowship Grant to Mitsukuni Yoshida, MD, PhD, a research fellow in the Apte Lab and a physician-scientist in the Academic Scholar Advancement Program (ASAP) in the Department of Anesthesiology. The funded project, titled “The Role of Myeloid Cholesterol Metabolism in the Development of Neuropathic Pain,” will explore how altered lipid metabolism in immune cells contributes to chronic pain syndromes.
Dr. Yoshida’s research builds on his previous work investigating NAD metabolism and immune senescence in age-related macular degeneration (AMD). His new project will examine how cholesterol overload in myeloid cells drives neuroinflammation and pain, particularly in the settings of aging and obesity, two major risk factors for chronic pain.
Receiving the FAER Fellowship is both an honor and a catalyst—it supports my aspiration to bridge basic science with clinical innovation. It enables me to pursue mechanistic research at the intersection of immunometabolism and neurobiology, with the goal of translating these findings into more effective therapies for chronic pain. Through this project, I aim to uncover how metabolic dysfunction drives chronic pain, paving the way for future therapeutic breakthroughs.
Mitsu Yoshida, MD, PhD
For more information about Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research, the work Dr. Apte or WashU Medicine, please visit: Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research | Apte Lab | WashU Medicine
About WashU Medicine
WashU Medicine is a global leader in academic medicine, including biomedical research, patient care and educational programs with 2,900 faculty. Its National Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding portfolio is the second largest among U.S. medical schools and has grown 56% in the last seven years. Together with institutional investment, WashU Medicine commits well over $1 billion annually to basic and clinical research innovation and training. Its faculty practice is consistently within the top five in the country, with more than 1,900 faculty physicians practicing at 130 locations and who are also the medical staffs of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals of BJC HealthCare. WashU Medicine has a storied history in MD/PhD training, recently dedicated $100 million to scholarships and curriculum renewal for its medical students, and is home to top-notch training programs in every medical subspecialty as well as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and audiology and communications sciences.