Portraits of Impact
Dr. Michael Burton
Chronic Pain Researcher Provides Better Opportunities for Students
Dr. Michael Burton, associate professor of neuroscience and fellow, Eugene McDermott Distinguished Professor, may not have been born a Texan, but he loves to tell his students he got here as soon as possible. After finishing his PhD, he started his secondary postdoctoral research at The University of Texas at Dallas nearly 10 years ago. He initially swore he would only spend three years at the University, but he decided to stay after meeting two new colleagues: Dr. Gregory Dussor, Eugene McDermott Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Neuroscience, and Dr. Theodore Price, Ashbel Smith Professor and professor of neuroscience.
“I ended up working with Dussor and Price after changing my research topic to focus on studying pain,” Burton said. “My research isn’t just focused on what causes pain, but rather it’s to help individuals who experience all levels of pain find a better fit with the drugs that can help them. A lot of the drugs people use either don’t work well or may work too well, which can lead to a dependency or tolerance. Trying to understand those mechanisms is what my team and I do.”
Burton, alongside Dussor and Price, founded the Center for Advanced Pain Study. Located within the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), the center focuses its efforts on studying most common forms of chronic pain.
“When creating the center, we looked at the landscape of BBS and saw other centers focused on vital longevity, brain health, speech and hearing, but we thought, ‘Why not pain?’ It made a lot of sense for us to bring together people in other departments like mechanical engineering and people from UT Southwestern,” he said. “So, we formed a group of scientists that care about advancing the understanding of what pain is.”
Although the center tackles a variety of subjects related to the study of pain, Burton’s research mostly focuses on neuroimmunology. He observes how the nervous and immune systems interact with one another to elicit behavior.
“The current research involves us using human patient and donor derived samples to inform us in genetically modifying mice to have a particular protein we’re interested in,” Burton said. “We observe the effects of that protein on a particular cell type during inflammation. That’s important to us because if you try to treat a person for inflammation, most of the inflammatory or anti-inflammatory agents that we use are very broad with no specific mechanisms. We’re trying to understand which cell to target so we can develop targeted therapeutics.”
Burton also runs the Neuroimmunology and Behavior Lab. He and his group of students, postdoctoral researchers and affiliates of UT Southwestern, combine neurobiology, behavior and pain studies. Currently, they are researching how lifestyle, age and sex affect cell metabolism and neuroimmune interactions.
In 2023, Burton’s research and commitment to the University earned him one of the University’s highest honors. He was endowed as a Eugene McDermott Distinguished Professor, a position established by generous donations from an anonymous donor. The five Eugene McDermott Distinguished Professorships at UT Dallas all provide early career support and recognition to faculty who have exceeded in teaching excellence and research productivity.
“Receiving this endowment was a surprise for me,” Burton said. “I just wanted to do my science and be supported to the best of my ability. At first, I didn’t truly understand what it meant, but when it fully set in for me, it was a very humbling moment. It has given me the opportunity to recruit additional students, when I wouldn’t be able to do that on my own. My lab now also has funding to do some research that isn’t fully funded by other grants. It means a lot that I could carry some of those funds to do the research I want to do to help people.”
Fall 2024 marked one year since Burton was promoted to an associate professor. He is hopeful 2025 will be one of his most productive yet.
“I am really looking forward to being present for my students without the stress of a promotion looming over me,” Burton said. “I’m also really excited about getting some new papers out the door. This could be our most productive yet.”