Paul Hansma

Biography

Paul Hansma, PhD, is a physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a researcher in the Neuroscience Research Institute. His inventions include Atomic Force Microscopes that function with samples in air or fluid, which have been commercialized by Digital Instruments (now Bruker) and Asylum Research (now part of Oxford Instruments), the Scanning Ion Conductance Microscope, and Bone Diagnostic Instruments including the Osteoprobe® commercialized by Active Life Scientific. It had been used on over 3,000 patients by 2015. The OsteoProbe® obtained European regulatory approval, is now CE Marked, has been used on over 3,000 patients. The FDA granted it De Novo status on July 11, 2018. His current research focus is on devices to quantify and reduce chronic pain as a part of a brain retraining program that includes education and activities. He has over 350 publications, with over 50,000 citations and an H factor of 112.

Research

The Hansma group invents new gadgets to help people. The current focus of the lab is devices for the relief of Chronic Pain. These devices are based on recent breakthroughs in the understanding of Chronic Pain as the result of an undesirable neuroplastic transformation of the brain after prolonged exposure to nociceptive pain: neurons that fire together wire together. These devices aim to help patients reprogram their brain to stop the repetitive firing of the pain circuits, which is unproductive since, in many cases, there is no need to keep protecting tissue from further damage.

Selected Publications

Guzman, E., Cheng, Z., Hansma, P.K., Tovar, K.R., Petzold, L.R. and Kosik, K.S., 2021. Extracellular detection of neuronal coupling. Scientific Reports, 11(1), pp.1-11.

Ly, F.S., Proctor, A., Hoffseth, K., Yang, H.T. and Hansma, P.K., 2020. Significant correlation of bone material strength index as measured by the OsteoProbe with Vickers and Rockwell hardness. Review of Scientific Instruments, 91(8), p.084102.

Zhao, Y., Ly, F., Hong, Q., Cheng, Z., Santander, T., Yang, H.T., Hansma, P.K. and Petzold, L., 2020, November. How Much Does It Hurt: A Deep Learning Framework for Chronic Pain Score Assessment. In 2020 International Conference on Data Mining Workshops (ICDMW) (pp. 651-660). IEEE.Sonnenfeld, R. and Hansma, P.K., 1986. Atomic-resolution microscopy in water. Science, 232(4747), pp.211-213.

Tovar, K.R., Bridges, D.C., Wu, B., Randall, C., Audouard, M., Jang, J., Hansma, P.K. and Kosik, K.S., 2018. Action potential propagation recorded from single axonal arbors using multielectrode arrays. Journal of neurophysiology, 120(7), pp.306-320.

Smith, B.L., Schäffer, T.E., Viani, M., Thompson, J.B., Frederick, N.A., Kindt, J., Belcher, A., Stucky, G.D., Morse, D.E. and Hansma, P.K., 1999. Molecular mechanistic origin of the toughness of natural adhesives, fibres and composites. Nature, 399(6738), pp.761-763.

Thompson, J.B., Kindt, J.H., Drake, B., Hansma, H.G., Morse, D.E. and Hansma, P.K., 2001. Bone indentation recovery time correlates with bond reforming time. Nature, 414(6865), pp.773-776.

Radmacher, M., Fritz, M., Hansma, H.G. and Hansma, P.K., 1994. Direct observation of enzyme activity with the atomic force microscope. Science, 265(5178), pp.1577-1579.

Sonnenfeld, R. and Hansma, P.K., 1986. Atomic-resolution microscopy in water. Science, 232(4747), pp.211-213.