Nik is an ARC Future Fellow in the Drug Discovery Biology Theme at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS). He obtained his PhD in 2009 from the Department of Genetics at The University of Melbourne. Following postdoctoral training on nociceptive TRP ion channels in Pharmacology at University of Melbourne, he joined Nigel Bunnett at MIPS (2012) to investigate neuropeptide receptor localisation, signalling and pain transmission, and progressed to group leader in 2016.   Since 2014, he has managed a global multi-disciplinary program spanning molecular pharmacology, preclinical pain models and drug delivery. He has 52 publications including in Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Chemical Biology, PNAS and Neuron, and has been awarded >$8M in funding (NHMRC, MRFF, ARC and industry) and a patent on novel analgesic nanoparticles that was licensed to Takeda Pharmaceuticals. He continues to develop tools and delivery systems to interrogate location-specific GPCR signalling and leads drug discovery programs targeting chronic skin pain and neuroinflammation.