MERLN Speaker Series | Luke Grundy

Dr. Grundy is a discovery scientist and Head of the NeuroUrology Research Group within the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute in Adelaide, Australia. He is an internationally recognised expert in the sensory innervation of the bladder where his research intersects neuroscience, urology, microbiology, and oncology to understand the neuroimmune interactions that underlie the development of bladder pain in response to infections, inflammation, and the side effects of cancer therapies. Dr Grundy has published more than 50 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters and is currently funded by the Australian Research Council, Cancer Council, and the Flinders Foundation.

Sensing the bladder in health and disease

The bladder is under constant sensory surveillance by diverse populations of sensory afferent nerves that encodes bladder filling and, when dysregulated, drive the urgency and pain that define common disorders such as interstitial cystitis and chronic pelvic pain. This talk will outline how distinct functional classes of bladder afferents, and the ion channels and receptors underlying their activity, translate mechanical and chemical signals into sensation, and how this signalling is corrupted in disease. I will present our latest discoveries exploring how inflammation and infection drive acute and chronic changes in bladder afferent sensitivity, and the unique subtypes of afferents that regulate normal and pathological sensation. I will discuss our recent work exploring novel therapies to relieve bladder pain that follows treatment for bladder cancer and discuss the potential benefits of humanised in-vitro platforms, including bladder-on-chip and sensory co-culture systems, that accurately recapitulate afferent function.