Dr. Stephen Roper is a Professor in the Departments of Physiology & Biophysics and Otolaryngology at the Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami. His laboratory studies sensory neurobiology, and specifically the transmission of orosensations (e.g., taste, pain, temperature, irritating chemicals) from peripheral sensory structures into the brain.
Ongoing projects include tests of orofacial pain and taste dysfunction that result from off target side effects of cancer chemotherapy such as oxaliplatin- and cisplatin-induced oral cold allodynia and dysgeusia. The premise is that taste changes and orofacial pain after oxaliplatin or cisplatin chemotherapy may be due, in part, to pathological changes in the sensory ganglia that innervate the tongue, head and neck, the geniculate and trigeminal ganglia. Because these ganglia lie outside the blood-brain barrier, pathological changes there may be treatable by drugs and agents injected into the blood stream, raising hopes for developing effective means to alleviate the painful side effects of chemotherapy.
They also are investigating the molecular physiology of taste, including how taste bud cells respond to salt stimulation and how taste is coded by sensory neurons in the geniculate ganglion.
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