Dr. Olga Pol

Olga Pol is the Group Leader of Molecular Neuropharmacology at Sant Pau Biomedical Research Institute, IIB-Sant Pau, and at the Neurosciences Institute of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Spain. Dr. Pol received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience in 1991. She was a scientific researcher at the Institut Municipal d’Investigació Mèdica-Parc de Recerca Biomèdica de Barcelona from 1992 to 2005. In 2005, she founded the Molecular Neuropharmacology Group at Sant Pau Biomedical Research Institute and UAB. She has conducted research stays at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA (1995) and the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, USA (1999), and she was a researcher special visitor at the University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil (2016-2018). Olga Pol has published 90 scientific articles, is the editor of the journal "Antioxidants," and is a member of the board of directors of the European Academy for Molecular Hydrogen Research in Biomedicine. She is interested in researching new strategies for the treatment of chronic pain and its accompanying emotional/cognitive disorders and studying novel approaches to improve the antinociceptive actions of opioids and cannabinoids. Over the past few years, her investigations have demonstrated that the activation of the Nrf2 transcription factor/HO-1/carbon monoxide pathway, as well as of sulfide hydrogen and molecular hydrogen, are appealing strategies to treat chronic pain.