Edgar (Terry) Walters received his Ph.D. in Physiology from Columbia University in 1980. His started his own lab in 1982 at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston (now McGovern Medical School), where he is currently Professor of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology and holder of the Fondren Chair in Cellular Signaling.  He has investigated nociceptor plasticity contributing to adaptive injury responses and pain-like behavior both in invertebrate models (Aplysia, squid) and, for the past 15 years, in mammalian persistent pain conditions (spinal cord injury and postsurgical pain in rats and mice). His current research is comparing mechanisms of hyperactivity, and especially spontaneous activity, in nociceptors from rodents and human patients, using sophisticated electrophysiological and cell biological methods.