Shao-Jun Tang, PhD
SPARC Endowed Professor of Anesthesiology
Department of Anesthesiology
Shao-Jun Tang’s research focuses on understanding the molecular, cellular and neural circuit mechanisms underlying pain associated with HIV and opioid use. His work investigates how pathological changes in the spinal cord, including synaptic dysfunction, neuron-glia interactions and neuroinflammation, contribute to the development and persistence of chronic pain.
HIV-1 infection can cause a spectrum of neurological and cognitive complications, collectively referred to as NeuroHIV. Tang’s research examines how HIV and its components, together with comorbid factors such as opioid exposure and antiretroviral therapy, alter the neural circuits that process and transmit pain signals. His laboratory uses interdisciplinary approaches — including single-cell analysis, spatial transcriptomics, neural circuit manipulation, patch-clamp electrophysiology, confocal imaging and behavioral testing — to investigate these mechanisms in animal models, postmortem human tissues and primary cultures of neurons and glial cells.
Tang is the SPARC Endowed Professor of Anesthesiology, vice chair for research in the Department of Anesthesiology and director of the Stony Brook University Pain and Analgesia Research Center. By defining the mechanisms that drive HIV- and opioid-associated pain, his research aims to identify new strategies to prevent, treat and potentially reverse the pathological processes underlying chronic pain.
