The Quest to Reinvent Anesthesia

Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry Professors Brian Shoichet, PhD ’91, and Jason Sello, PhD, are leading a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that combines artificial intelligence, molecule design, and innovative animal models to evaluate 6 million small molecules for anesthetic properties.

In collaboration with a team of researchers based at the UCSF School of Pharmacy and UC San Diego who are seeking dramatically safer anesthetics, the work is motivated by the prospect of portable surgery requiring fewer specialists and tools and could open a brave new world in which surgery would be less onerous and less expensive for patients.

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• The Quest to Reinvent Anesthesia 

• $25 million federal defense grant funds anesthesia innovation