Rate My Professor Laura Stone

Laura Stone, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Twin Cities. She earned a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry from the University of California, San Diego, and a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Minnesota in 1999. Following postdoctoral training at Oregon Health and Science University, she held a faculty position at McGill University from 2007 to 2020, advancing research in pain mechanisms. In June 2020, she returned to the University of Minnesota as the Department of Anesthesiology's first dedicated basic scientist, also affiliating with the Graduate Program in Neuroscience and the U of M Pain Consortium. As director of the Stone Pain Lab, she is an inventor on seven patents and has co-authored over 70 peer-reviewed manuscripts. Her professional memberships include the Society for Neuroscience, International Association for the Study of Pain, U.S. Association for the Study of Pain, Canadian Pain Society, and Orthopaedic Research Society.

Stone's research focuses on the mechanisms of low back and musculoskeletal pain, epigenetic regulation of chronic pain, and optimization of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions. She leads funded projects such as an NIH R01 on epigenetic drivers of chronic low back pain (PI, 2024-2029), an NIAMS R61 on a mouse model of intervertebral disc degeneration-induced low back pain (PI, 2024-2026), and a U.S. Department of Defense grant on pathways from acute to chronic back pain (Co-Investigator, 2020-2025). Key publications encompass "Effective treatment of chronic low back pain in humans reverses abnormal brain anatomy and function" (Journal of Neuroscience, 2011), "Senolytic treatment for low back pain" (Science Advances, 2025), "Epigenetic landscape of symptomatic disk degeneration" (Pain Reports, 2025), "Exercise attenuates low back pain and alters epigenetic regulation in intervertebral discs in a mouse model" (The Spine Journal, 2021), and "Epigenetic signature of chronic low back pain in human T cells" (Pain Reports, 2021). Among her honors are the Québec Science Top 10 award, the International Society for the Study of Lumbar Spine Basic Science Best Paper Awards (2014 and 2019), NIH HEAL Initiative funding, and permanent membership on the NIH Neurobiology of Pain and Itch Study Section.