WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 -- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' National Institutes of Health announced that it expects to award a cooperative agreement for the discovery and functional evaluation of human pain-associated genes and cells. The agency description of the cooperative agreement states: "The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement is to support research that uses human tissue or cells to generate comprehensive datasets for the discovery and characterization of functional genetic elements, epigenetic signatures, and  more ST