Ben Seymour is a Principal Investigator at the Center for Information and Neural Networks (National institute of Information and Communications Technology, Wellcome Clinical Fellow at the Computational and Biological Learning Lab at Cambridge University, and an affiliate at ATR Labs (Kyoto) and Professor at Osaka University in Japan. He received his undergraduate degrees in molecular biology and medicine at Manchester University, and PhD in neuroscience at UCL. He does interdisciplinary research at the interface of neuroscience and engineering, focusing on the systems and computational neuroscience of pain and learning, and applied research in clinical neuroengineering.
Dr. Lannie Ligthart is a researcher at the department of Biological Psychology of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, specializing in behavioral genetics, in particular the genetics of migraine and its comorbidity with depression. She obtained her PhD on this topic in 2010, under the supervision of Prof. D.I. Boomsma and Dr. Dale R. Nyholt. Since then, she has conducted a large survey study on migraine an pain symtpoms in the Netherlands Twin Registry (NTR), and for many years coordinated a master course in Behavioral Genetics. Her current research focus is on the relationship between depression and chronic pain conditions in general, as it turns out that depression is associated with many different pain symptoms and chronic pain conditions. In particular she is interested in the genetic overlap between migraine, depression and other pain conditions and in how patterns of genetic correlations between conditions can provide new insights into the underlying mechanisms causing them. In 2012, she received the EFIC-Grünenthal Grant to perform a study on the longitudinal development of symptoms of depression and chronic pain.
Dr Matt Mulvey gained his PhD in Neurophysiology of pain from Leeds Beckett University, UK, in 2010. Since that time Dr Mulvey’s research has focused on the epidemiology, assessment and management of pain in people with cancer. Dr Mulvey completed a 2 year post-doc in the epidemiology of chronic pain from 2010 to 2012 in the Epidemiology Unit at the University of Manchester, UK. In November 2012, Dr Mulvey moved to the University of Leeds where, as a post-doc researcher, he developed a programme of research investigating the physiology of pain in cancer. Dr Mulvey has led a number of nationally funded research projects developing complex interventions to support the self-management of pain and analgesia at the end of life. In September 2017 Matt was awarded a five year fellowship funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research to develop novel interventions to improve the assessment and management of cancer pain for pain specialists and non-pain specialists.
Currently Dr Mulvey is leading an international collaborative research project using Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST). The project will evaluate the European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) algorithm for diagnosing neuropathic pain in cancer against the NeupSIG neuropathic pain grading system. The project will also describe common pain phenotypes using QST data from a heterogeneous sample of cancer patients with tumour-related pain.
Pr Nadine ATTAL is Professor of therapeutics and pain in University Versailles Saint Quentin (UVSQ, France) and responsible for the Center of Evaluation and Treatment of Pain in Ambroise Paré Hospital (Boulogne-Billancourt, FRANCE). She is also a member of the INSERM U 987 Research Unit on Pain (Ambroise Paré hospital, directed by Didier Bouhassira). Her research activity has focused on chronic pain particularly neuropathic pain and pain management. Pr Attal has coordinated several international recommendations on neuropathic pain, has published 136 peer review papers in high impact factors journals such as Lancet Neurol, Annals Neurol, Neurology, Brain, Pain and has an H index of 50. She is a Council member of the International Association for the Study of Pain and of the the French Society of Pain, member of the scientific committee of the European Academy of neurology (EAN) and head of the panel « pain » of the EAN. She has received award from Fondation de France, price of biology from the Science Academy (« Académie des Sciences ») in 2017 and was appointed knight (« Chevalier de la légion d’honneur ») in october 2016.
André Mouraux (MD, PhD) heads a research group specialized in research on the physiology of the nociceptive system in humans, especially the cortical processes underlying the perception of pain. Using non-invasive functional neuroimaging techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), combined with novel techniques to selectively activate specific classes of nociceptive afferents (temperature-controlled infrared laser stimulation, mechanical pinprick stimulation, electric stimulation) and neuromodulation (transcranial direct current stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation), he aims at better understanding the neural processes underlying the perception of pain, the plastic changes in nociceptive pathways that occur after inflammation, injury or sustained nociceptive input, and its involvement in the development of chronic pain. These approaches are also translated into clinical tools for the diagnosis and follow-up of chronic pain conditions (http://www.nocions.org).
Dr. Julia Glombiewski is Professor for Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the University of Koblenz-Landau in Landau at the south border of Germany. She is also Head of the Pain and Psychotherapy Research Lab and of the Outpatient Psychotherapy University Clinic in Landau. Julia Glombiewski was trained in CBT at the University of Marburg, Germany and is now licensed Clinical Psychologist and Supervisor for CBT. She obtained her PhD in Clinical Psychology in 2007 on the effectiveness of CBT based outpatient programs for chronic back pain. She has been treating individuals with chronic pain since 2003 and is now involved in supervision and postgraduate teaching programs on chronic pain. Her research interests are the effectiveness and the mechanisms of action of psychological pain treatments. In particular, she investigates the efficacy and the effectiveness of exposure based interventions for chronic low back pain, but she also develops other tailored treatment approaches such as self-compassion treatment for anger in chronic pain. She is also interested in placebo and nocebo effects and in the role of expectations in psychological treatments. In order to better understand chronic pain and to improve pain treatments she conducts basic experimental studies, RCTs and singe case experimental design studies.
Ina Skyt received her Master’s degree in Psychology from Aarhus University, Denmark, in 2016. She has been working in pain research since 2012, currently as PhD Student at the Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Aarhus University. Her research focuses on how psychological interventions may contribute to the efficacy of active pain treatments, primarily in relation to chronic pain management, with a special focus on placebo effects. During her PhD, she has specifically investigated the contribution of expectancy, desire and the dopaminergic system in placebo effects in chronic neuropathic pain patients.
Stephan Schug is Professor and Chair of Anaesthesiology and Pain Medicine in the Medical School of the University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia and Director of Pain Medicine at Royal Perth Hospital, Australia. His principal research interests include the management of acute and chronic pain, cancer pain, regional anaesthesia, the pharmacology of local anaesthetics and analgesics and quality improvement in health care.
Professor Schug studied medicine at the University of Cologne, Germany, where he also obtained his MD in clinical pharmacology and subsequently specialised in anaesthesia and pain medicine. He has written over 80 research and 180 review papers, as well as abstracts, letters, and editorials, and has edited or co-authored several books, book chapters, and monographs. He is currently on editorial and review boards of several leading journals including Pain & Therapy, Annals of Palliative Medicine, Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology and CNS Drugs. Professor Schug is an active member of several pain and anaesthesia societies including Past-Chair of the SIG Acute Pain of IASP and Chair of the SIG Acute Pain of ACE, and is a Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) and its Faculty of Pain Medicine (FPMANZCA), where he is a member of the Board of the Faculty.
Mary O’Keeffe is a physiotherapist and European Union Horizon 2020 Marie Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at Musculoskeletal Health Sydney, The University of Sydney. Mary’s fellowship involves two years in the University of Sydney, a three month secondment to EFIC in Brussels in Belgium, and 9 months in the University of Limerick in Ireland. Mary was awarded her PhD in 2017 in the University of Limerick. Her PhD research examined whether tailoring multidimensional rehabilitation to the individual chronic low back pain patient enhances effectiveness. Mary is very passionate about public engagement and communicating evidence-based information about low back pain through radio, newspapers and social media. Examples include All you ever need to know about back pain (RTE News Ireland), 10 myths about back pain and how to cope when it strikes, 15 things you didn’t know about back pain, How to move on from back pain, How your sleep patterns could be contributing to your back pain (Irish Independent newspaper). Mary has published 36 papers relating to low back pain and other musculoskeletal pain conditions. Mary is part of the Wiser Healthcare Collaboration and her current postdoctoral research projects involve the effect of nudging on clinician behaviour, the impact of different low back pain diagnostic labels on treatment intentions, and media coverage of the benefits and harms of testing.
Mike Bennett is the St Gemma’s Professor of Palliative Medicine and is Director of the Academic Unit of Palliative Care. The Academic Unit is an internationally recognized multidisciplinary research and teaching unit based at the University of Leeds and St Gemma’s Hospice, UK. He qualified from University of Birmingham in 1988 and completed an MD (doctoral thesis) in 1999 resulting in the LANSS Pain Scale, an internationally used tool for identifying neuropathic pain. In 2017, he secured formal University Teaching Hospice status for St Gemma’s Hospice (first in the UK) where he works clinically 2 days per week.
His main research interests are in cancer pain and neuropathic pain, and evaluating interventions at the end of life. He currently leads an £2.2m NIHR Programme Grant and a £1.4m Yorkshire Cancer Research Programme Grant focused on early integration of palliative care and better pain management for cancer patients. Since taking up his post in Leeds, he has generated over £9.5m in research grants and awards. He has published over 200 papers in scientific journals. He chaired the Cancer Pain SIG for the International Association for the Study of Pain and chaired the NCRI Palliative and Supportive Care Clinical Studies Group from 2008 to 2014, and chaired the NICE guideline evidence review on Opioids in Palliative Care.
He led the writing of Core Standards for Cancer Pain which are now adopted into the NHS and form part of the CQC inspection framework, and led the writing of the cancer pain taxonomy for ICD-11 as part of the IASP task force. He co-leads an EFIC task force on European standards for cancer pain management. He co-edited the book ‘Practical Management of complex cancer pain’ which won the BMA Book of the Year in 2015. He has chaired various organizing and scientific committees for international conferences of the European Association for Palliative Care.
Liesbet Goubert is Full Professor in the Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology at Ghent University, Belgium (http://www.ghplab.ugent.be). She is interested in psychosocial risk factors for the development of chronic (pediatric) pain and in the interpersonal dynamics of (chronic) pain and chronic illness. More recently, she became very interested in the study of psychosocial resilience mechanisms that may account for the sustainment of adaptive functioning and well-being in the presence of pain.
She has published 145 peer-reviewed articles and 15 book chapters, which have 7230 citations (her h-index is 43). Her scholarly contributions have been recognized with several scientific awards, including the IASP-SIG Early Career Award in Pediatric Pain, the EFIC Grünenthal Grant Award and the Prize “Institut Belge de la Douleur-UPSA-Belgisch Pijninstituut”. In 2017, she received the British Pain Society Medal in recognition for her outstanding contributions to the clinical science of pain.
She is a Council member of the IASP Special Interest Group on Pain in Childhood (2018 – 2023) and a member of the IASP/EFIC Global Year 2019 taskforce “Pain in the most vulnerable”. She has been the Scientific Chair of the 11th International Symposium on Pediatric Pain (2017, Malaysia) and the European Pediatric Psychology Conference (2018, Belgium). At the national level, she is a member of the scientific committee of the Belgian Pain Society and a member of the workforce Chronic Pain in Childhood of the Belgian Paediatric Pain Association.
Kirsty Bannister graduated from UCL in 2003 with a BSc in Pharmacology (first class honours) before completing a Master of Research and subsequent PhD in Epigenetics at Imperial College London. In 2008 Kirsty began a post-doctoral placement back at UCL in the Neuropharmacology of Pain laboratory, investigating neural and pharmacological systems that sub-serve pain transmission and modulation in the spinal cord and brain. Kirsty joined King’s College London in the autumn of 2017 on a permanent basis as a Lecturer in Neuropharmacology, and Principal Investigator. Her interests remain investigating descending mechanisms of pain control in both normal and pathological conditions, and how to translate basic science to the patient. Kirsty has authored 24 refereed publications and has led multiple symposia at international meetings including the World Congress on Pain, European Pain Federation EFIC, Pain Mechanisms and Therapeutics, and The Physiological Society. In 2017 Kirsty won the EFIC IBSA publication award for her original research article ‘An investigation into the inhibitory function of serotonin in DNIC’.
Judith Paice, PhD, RN is the Director of the Cancer Pain Program in the Division of Hematology-Oncology and a Research Professor of Medicine, Northwestern University; Feinberg School of Medicine. She is also a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Paice has served as President of the American Pain Society and Secretary of the International Association for the Study of Pain. Much of Dr Paice’s clinical work has been in the relief of pain associated with cancer and HIV disease. She has traveled widely within the People’s Republic of China, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Taiwan, Tanzania, Tajikistan, and many other countries to educate health care professionals regarding cancer pain relief and palliative care. Dr. Paice serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Pain and the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management and is the author of more than 150 scientific manuscripts. She was one of the original consultants in the End of Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) and has continued serving as a faculty member in this program.
Prof. dr. D. Tibboel (project leader) followed his training in Pediatrics from 1980 until 1984 at the Sophia Children’s Hospital. In 1984 he became head of the Pediatric Surgical Intensive Care and in January 1993 Sophia Foundation Professor of Experimental Pediatric Surgery.
In August 2005 he was appointed full professor (Research Intensive Care in Childhood).
In 2008 he became the director of the ICU at the Sophia Children’s Hospital. He is (co-) author of over 750 international peer reviewed articles. He is a member of several Editoral Boards, chairman of the scientific committee of the European Society of Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care (ESPNIC) and founder of the CHD EURO CONSORTIUM.
In 2002 he was awarded the Edgar Doncker prize from the Dutch Pediatric Association for his outstanding contributions in the fields of major congenital anomalies. In total, over 105 PhD students wrote their thesis under his guidance. In 2013 he was appointed Director of Research, Sophia Children’s Hospital. (publications 721, H-index 53 )
Stephen McMahon is Sherrington Professor of Physiology at King’s College London. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He trained with Prof PD Wall at University College London and since then has run his own research laboratory in London.
His major research interest is pain mechanisms. He has a long-standing interest in identifying pain mediators and studying their neurobiological actions. He has worked extensively on the role of NGF (neutralizing antibodies now in multiple phase III trials), ATP acting at P2X3 receptors (receptor antagonists now in multiple phase II and III trials). His current research is focused on neuro-immune interactions, particularly the neurobiology of chemokines, and the genetics and epigenetics of pain.
Professor McMahon currently directs the Wellcome Trust Pain Consortium, and prior to this, the London Pain Consortium, a collection of leading pain researchers working to better understand chronic pain mechanisms and improve treatments. He was academic lead on a EU-IMI consortium called Europain, a collaboration of scientists working in academia and industry, 2009-2015. He is also deputy Chair of the MRC’s Neuroscience and Mental Health Board.
He has published more than 300 research articles in scientific journals including, Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Neuroscience, Cell, Neuron and the Journal of Neuroscience and has an H-index of 102 (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=Qz9HihUAAAAJ&hl=en)
Thomas R. Tölle is a Professor of Neurology at the Technische Universität München, Germany. He is a neurologist and psychologist by training. He was formerly also appointed as Professor of Medical Psychology and Neurobiology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. He combines a basic and clinical research department with running a multi-disciplinary pain clinic.
He set up an interdisciplinary research group for clinical and experimental research into pain, focusing primarily on the neurobiological mechanisms of neuronal plasticity, pharmacological treatment and central imaging with fMRI and PET. His research and clinical interests also include the prevention and treatment of chronic neuropathic pain and he is spokesman and runs the headoffice of the German Research Network for Neuropathic Pain (DFNS). He served as the president of the German IASP chapter and was chair the scientific program committee for the EFIC European Pain Congress in 2017 in Copenhagen. Currently he is member at large of the Executive Board of EFIC and chair of the committee for advocacy in the EXB.
He was also as plenary speaker on world congress of pain of IASP and worked in various task forces of IASP, has authored many peer reviewed publications, participated in the development of various treatment guidelines and lectures on many aspects of pain medicine all over the world.
After passing for gymnasium, Rianne continued with Nursing on the higher professional educational level, being a student nurse in the Radboud university medical center. At the age of 23, she received her Bachelor of Nursing. Her job was offered immediately after her graduation in the department of General Internal Medicine and then at the Thorax / Heart Surgery department. After three years, she started nursing education specializing in intensive care nursing. After four years at the Intensive Care department, she accepted the position of clinical pain nursing consultant at the Department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Palliative Medicine. She is still working at this department and has since been employed as a nursing expert and is the hospital leader for the theme “Early Recognition and Treatment of Pain”. In this function, she is responsible for all aspects of pain in patients, such as protocols, work instructions, patient education, training programs, reports and quality improvement programs of individual departments.
In addition to clinical work, Rianne initiated the two-year post-graduate program for pain nursing consultant at the HAN University of Applied Sciences. She still coordinates this training and some other courses related to pain and palliative care at the HAN. Furthermore, she has accepted the assignment to promote research and evidence based practice and give these topics a more prominent place in the courses within HAN VDO.
In 2013 she won a personal scholarship, “NWO Promotion Grant for Teachers”, to start her PhD study on acute postoperative pain management in collaboration with the Radboud University Medical Center and HAN. In 2017 she successfully defended her PhD thesis called:
Improving postoperative pain care: an Acute Pain Service data analysis.
I was born and raised in Wiesbaden/Germany and trained in Anaesthesia / Pain Medicine in Wuerzburg/Germany, and in the UK (Oxford, UCLH), and for post-trauma immunology at Harvard Medical School, Boston, US.
I work as Consultant in Pain Medicine at the Liverpool Walton Centre, and as Reader (associated Professor) in Pain Medicine at the University of Liverpool.
My research has focused on the role of the adaptive immune system in causing chronic pain. Based on our laboratory results, I have developed the idea of ‘autoantibody-pain’, a conceptual framework for explaining persistent Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), and additional severe primary chronic pains; I first proposed the concept of using passive transfer models to assess the contribution of IgG autoantibodies to chronic pain in 2004, have since established the first such model, and have led a group which has been successfully testing innovative immune-modulating treatments, particularly for the group of patients with longstanding CRPS. Our combined laboratory-clinical translational work has recently led to a first change in international guidelines, with the inclusion of CRPS as an indication into the ASFA guidelines for plasma exchange in 2016.
I have initiated, and have been leading the UK interdisciplinary CRPS Guidelines Group, under the Umbrella of the UK Royal College of Physicians, which has published its revised guidance in July 2018, endorsed by 29 UK professional organisations and Royal Colleges. I am Chair of the Special Interest Group ‘CRPS’ of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), and Chair of the European Pain Federation Task Force on CRPS.
In daily practice, I see patients at the Walton Centre, in secondary and tertiary outpatient clinics, Pain Management Program assessment clinics, and in operation theatres for neuromodulation trials. For my academic part, I also work as Director of the Liverpool Pain Research Institute – supporting Pain Research in the NW of the UK https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/pain-research-institute/.
Nanna Brix Finnerup, MD, DrMedSc, is Professor and head of the Danish Pain Research Center, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Denmark. Nanna Finnerup graduated from the Medical School at Aarhus University 1993, and after internship worked at the department of Neurology and Clinical Neurophysiology at the University of Copenhagen. Since 1998 she has worked at the Danish Pain Research Center at Aarhus University. She obtained her degree of Doctor of Medical Sciences from Aarhus University in 2008, and is currently Professor at the Danish Pain Research Center.
Dr. Finnerup has authored more than 130 refereed publications. Her main research interest is the pathophysiology and therapy of neuropathic pain. Current research areas include spinal cord injury pain, chemotherapy-induced neuropathic pain, painful diabetic polyneuropathy, postsurgical neuropathic pain, thermal sensory integration, neurophysiological assessment of pain mechanisms, placebo mechanisms, neuropharmacology, clinical trials, and systematic reviews.
Dr Finnerup is vice-chair of NeuPSIG, the neuropathic pain SIG of IASP and past president of the Scandinavian Association for the Study of pain (SASP). She is section editor of the journal PAIN. She has given a plenary lecture at the World Congress on Pain and the Sir Ludwig Guttman lecture at the International Spinal Cord Injury Society.
Prof. Elon Eisenberg graduated from Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv
University in Israel. He completed a residency in Neurology, at Rambam Medical Center, Haifa, Israel, and Neurology – Pain Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA.
Prof. Eisenberg has been the director of the Institute of Pain Medicine at
Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel, and the President of the Israeli Pain Association. He is currently the director of the Pain Research Unit at the Institute of Pain Medicine, Rambam Health Care Campus. He is a Professor of Neurology and Pain Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and holds the Otto Barth Family Academic Chair in Biomedical Science at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. His main areas of research include mechanisms and treatment of pain with special emphasis on neuropathic pain, CRPS, cancer pain, opioids and cannabinoids. Prof. Eisenberg has published about two-hundred articles, book chapters and abstracts in various areas of pain.
Inna Belfer, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Belfer is a world-recognized expert in human pain genetics and phenomics. She began her career as a neurologist, then received extensive training in neurobiology and human genetics. For over 15 years, her primary research interests have been the relationship between gene polymorphisms and complex phenotypes such as pain, psychiatric disorders, and addictions. Her research focused on biobehavioral aspects of acute and chronic pain, sex influence on pain and analgesia, and genomic predictors of the transformation of acute pain into chronic condition.
After serving as a Staff Scientist at National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Pain Program, she joined the University of Pittsburgh as Associate Professor of Anesthesiology and Human Genetics and the Director of the Molecular Epidemiology of Pain Program. In 2015, Dr. Belfer Joined the Food and Drug Administration as a medical officer for novel analgesics, evaluating clinical trial design and safety data, and analyzed trends and new scientific fields to assess the adequacy of clinical translational pain research including sex-specific factors controlling pain. Lately, Dr. Belfer returned to NIH to direct extramural pain portfolio at the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
Dr. Belfer served on numerous national and international grant review panels, presented at over 80 conferences, and organized pain genetic meetings, workshops and roundtables. She published extensively in high-impact peer-reviewed journals and edited several book chapters and books.
Thomas Graven-Nielsen received a M.Sc.EE degree within Biomedical Engineering from Aalborg University, Denmark in 1994 and acquired his PhD within Biomedical Science and Engineering in 1997 (Aalborg University). In 2006 he obtained a Doctoral degree in Medical Science (Copenhagen University). He is Director at Center for Neuroplasticity and Pain (CNAP), SMI, Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark (since 2015), and Full Professor in Pain Neuroscience since 2008. The Danish National Research Foundation funds CNAP. Adjunct Professor at University at Western Sydney, Australia (since 2015), and Adjunct Professor at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia (since 2004). The research focuses on translational studies of musculoskeletal pain bridging the gap between basic animal findings and clinical manifestations of pain. The scope is to identify and modulate key features of human pain neuroplasticity leading to prevention of maladaptive neuroplasticity and promote advantageous neuroplasticity. Development of pain models, bio-markers, and assessment technologies are key biomedical tools for the translational studies. The core areas are muscle pain, joint pain, referred pain, localised and widespread deep-tissue hyperalgesia, pharmacological screening, and electrophysiological techniques to assess muscle pain physiology and neuroplasticity. He has published 300+ papers and reviews (260+ peer-reviewed, H-factor: 55) and received several awards. He reviews papers on a regular basis for high ranked journals, has presented as keynote speaker at several international conferences, and organised scientific workshops and symposia at international meetings. More than 10 national and international collaborations on translational pain research have been established including research groups in Sweden, UK, Japan, USA and Australia. Several international guest professors have worked with Dr. Graven-Nielsen in his laboratory facilities.
Mike Bennett is the St Gemma’s Professor of Palliative Medicine and is Director of the Academic Unit of Palliative Care. The Academic Unit is an internationally recognized multidisciplinary research and teaching unit based at the University of Leeds and St Gemma’s Hospice, UK. He qualified from University of Birmingham in 1988 and completed an MD (doctoral thesis) in 1999 resulting in the LANSS Pain Scale, an internationally used tool for identifying neuropathic pain. In 2017, he secured formal University Teaching Hospice status for St Gemma’s Hospice (first in the UK) where he works clinically 2 days per week.
His main research interests are in cancer pain and neuropathic pain, and evaluating interventions at the end of life. He currently leads an £2.2m NIHR Programme Grant and a £1.4m Yorkshire Cancer Research Programme Grant focused on early integration of palliative care and better pain management for cancer patients. Since taking up his post in Leeds, he has generated over £6.5m in research grants and awards. He has published over 200 papers in scientific journals. He chaired the Cancer Pain SIG for the International Association for the Study of Pain and chaired the NCRI Palliative and Supportive Care Clinical Studies Group from 2008 to 2014, and chaired the NICE guideline evidence review on Opioids in Palliative Care.
He led the writing of Core Standards for Cancer Pain which are now adopted into the NHS and form part of the CQC inspection framework, and led the writing of the cancer pain taxonomy for ICD-11 as part of the IASP task force. He co-leads an EFIC task force on European priorities for cancer pain management. He co-edited the book ‘Practical Management of complex cancer pain’ which won the BMA Book of the Year in 2015. He has chaired various organizing and scientific committees for international conferences of the European Association for Palliative Care.
André Mouraux (MD, PhD) is Professor at the Faculty of medicine and head of the Systems and Cognition (COSY) pole of the Institute of Neuroscience at the Université catholique de Louvain (Belgium). After completing his PhD in neuroscience and his medical training in neurology, André Mouraux conducted a 2-year post-doctorate at the FMRIB Centre of the University of Oxford. To date, André Mouraux has published more than 120 refereed publications. His research focuses on the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the perception of physiological and pathological pain in humans. His research group (http://www.nocions.org) has developed several new techniques to study cortical activity related to pain perception using scalp EEG, intracerebral EEG and functional MRI. André Mouraux also has a strong interest in developing novel research methods that can be used in humans, such as techniques to selectively activate specific classes of nociceptors and novel EEG signal-processing approaches (time-frequency analysis of EEG signals, TMS-evoked EEG to study changes in cortical excitability and connectivity, steady-state heat-evoked potentials, mechanical pinprick-evoked potentials; see also http://letswave.org, an open-source toolbox for the analysis of EEG signals).
Prof. Dr. Ron van Schaik (PhD, FACB) is a registered European Specialist Laboratory Medicine and a Full Professor of Pharmacogenetics. He is working at the Dept. Clinical Chemistry at the Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam, and is Director of the International (IFCC) Expert-center for Pharmacogenetics. Main interest is the clinical implementation of pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenetics translational research.
Specific research fields are organ transplantation, oncology, cardiology, pain and psychiatry. He has published over 275 articles on pharmacogenetics. Prof van Schaik participates in several National and International advisory committees on Pharmacogenetics (a.o. chair of the European Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium (Eu-PIC; chair (www.eu-pic.net), President of the European Society for Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Therapy (www.esptnet.eu) and advisor of the Pharmacogenetics Working Group of the European Medicine Agency (EMA). In 2001, he received the Ortho Clinical Diagnostics Award for Outstanding Research, in 2009 the AACC Outstanding Speaker Award, and in 2010 the AACC/Mol Pathology Award for Outstanding Scientific Research.
Simon trained at the Universities of Birmingham, Oxford and Bristol. He is based in the neurosciences centre at the John Radcliffe Hospital with the Oxford Functional Neurosurgery team.
His clinical work has specialised the neuropsychological assessment and care of patients referred for functional neurosurgery including neuromodulation for neuropathic pain. He sees patients with a very wide range of indications for surgery and assesses suitability for procedures including Spinal Cord Stimulation, Dorsal Root Ganglion Stimulation, Peripheral Nerve Stimulation and Occipital Nerve Stimulation. His research interests include psychological variables that influence outcome from surgery, how patients can be supported prior to surgery in order to improve their outcome and the neuropsychological safety of Deep Brain Stimulation.
He is a clinical governance lead for the Oxford Psychological Medicine Centre with responsibility for the safety, quality and effectiveness of adult health psychology across the organisation. He is a member of the executive board of the British Psychological Society Division of Neuropsychology and the Chair of the UK Society for Neuromodulation Nurses and Associated Professionals.
Dr. Rebecca Pillai Riddell is a Full Professor, Clinical Psychologist and Director of the Opportunities to Understand Childhood Hurt Laboratory, in addition to her responsibilities as York University’s Associate Vice-President Research (Toronto, Canada). She has created the largest cohort to date examining the development of behavioural pain responses in infants over the first five years of life- The OUCH Cohort. This research followed 760 infants at their 2, 4, 6 and/or 12 month immunizations and again at their preschool vaccination. Through stringent observational procedures and powerful statistical models, she has built an unrivalled body of literature examining the mechanisms by which parents influence the expression of pain in their young child. Her new cohort, The OUCH Cardio Cohort, is building a more fundamental program of research examining the dynamics of behavioural and physiological distress regulation (mother and child) in both painful and non-painful contexts during the second year of life. Another current direction for the OUCH Lab includes using artificial intelligence to achieve a higher standard of infant pain assessment: distinguishing pain-related distress from non-pain related distress. Moreover, going beyond the theory, she has parlayed her passion for promulgating the power of parents into a number of national and international initiatives that target both parents and health professionals directly. Her research program is supported by all four major Canadian federal research funding councils (CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC, and CFI). She has won a number of prestigious international awards for her research and impact. Most recently, she was named the American Pain Society’s 2019 Jeffrey Lawson Award for Advocacy in Children’s Pain Relief. In addition, she is also an award-winning mentor who is dedicated to training the next generation of research leaders. In 2018, the York University’s Faculty of Graduate Studies honoured her with an Outstanding Teaching Award. In addition to her own large behavioural science laboratory, she helps lead the Pain in Child Health initiative (Co-PI 2015-2018; Co-Chair 2015-2017; National Collaborator 2018-), an international training program for graduate research trainees that has worked with over 300 trainees worldwide since its inception.
Eleonora Galosi is a postgraduate-MD, resident in Neurology, currently employed at the Department of Human Neuroscience of Sapienza University (Rome), where she has acquired skills in clinical, neurophysiological and skin biopsy assessment of patients suffering from peripheral nervous system diseases and neuropathic pain. She has focused her research activity on intraepidermal innervation morphometry assessment by skin biopsy in different neuropathic pain conditions, getting experienced with skin samples immunohistochemical processing and morphometric analysis.
Graduated in Biological Sciences, with PhD in Biological Chemistry (In Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and pos-doctorate in immunopharmacology (in University of São Paulo, Brazil).
Full professor of Pharmacology at Institute of Biolmedical Sciences, in Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and head of the Laboratory of Pharmacology of Pain and inflammation, receiving fellowship from FAPERJ (scientist from our state) and CNPq (fellow 1D).
Is head of the Post-Graduate Program in Pharmacology and Medicinal Chemistry (ICB/UFRJ) and editor of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology.
Has 90 articles published in indexed journal and 4 patents deposited. With more than 20 master’s, 8 PhD thesis and pos-doctorates supervised.
Develops research directed to the search for new substances originated from natural or synthetic products that may be candidates for drug prototypes, acting in pre-clinical studies in the areas of inflammation, analgesia and cancer using for both acute and chronic models of diseases. The laboratory has experience in pre-clinical and toxicological tests for the validation of herbal medicines.
Shellie A. Boudreau is an Associate Professor at the Center for Neuroplasticity and Pain (CNAP), SMI, Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark and has been a member of the research faculty since 2005. Shellie received her BSc and MSc. Engineering from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
Her research interests are in the areas of musculoskeletal and neuropathic pain with a focus capturing the benefits from digital mapping and image/map database systems. She designs and develops electronic patient reported outcome (ePRO) software technology to support big data studies for clarifying driving mechanisms of pain. Through this, she is pioneering and assessing novel metrics and approaches to identify and quantify patterns of bodily-pain and other related symptoms across a number of musculoskeletal and neuropathological diseases and syndromes. Therefore, she is translating basic research into tools for clinical and industry applications. Shellie has a number of peer-reviewed scientific publications within musculoskeletal pain, cortical neuroplasticity, and eHealth, has been honored for teaching excellence, and is one of the first recipients of a Talent Management Grant from Aalborg University, Denmark. One of her research paths investigates the influence of pain and attention on cortical neuroplasticity and movement behavior. Currently, she supports and supervises multiple PhD projects and post-docs on projects on the effects of pain and maladaptive neuroplasticity. Her goal for this symposium is to inspire and connect researchers, clinicians, and industry on a common path for a more dynamic and realistic assessment of the pain experience.
Iris Coppieters holds a Master of Science degree in Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy. She is a postdoctoral research fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) – Applied Biomedical Research Program (TBM) appointed at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Brussels, Belgium) and Ghent University (Ghent, Belgium), and a member of the Pain in Motion (PiM) international research group. The PiM group is internationally recognized for its work on hyperexcitability of the central nervous system (central sensitization) and the effect of pain neuroscience education in various chronic pain disorders. Iris is also a visiting professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and a physiotherapist at the University Hospital Brussels (Brussels, Belgium) where she treats patients with chronic pain. In addition, Iris is project coordinator of 3 randomized controlled trials focusing on brain imaging and rehabilitation including pain neuroscience education in the field of chronic whiplash and lumbar radiculopathy.
In 2017, she obtained her PhD in health sciences focusing on central sensitization and brain alterations in patients with chronic whiplash associated disorders compared to patients with chronic idiopathic neck pain. Her research and clinical interest goes out to chronic pain with a special interest in chronic spinal pain, pain rehabilitation, central sensitization and brain alterations. She received 3 presentation awards at national and international congresses, and she is ranked 30th in the world among whiplash injury researchers (expertscape.com).
At the age of 29, Iris has (co-)authored 22 peer-reviewed publications (9 as first author and 3 as last author) in international journals, including several papers in high impact journals such as Human Brain Mapping (IF 2017: 4.927), Physical Therapy (IF 2016: 2.764), The Journal of Pain (IF 2016: 4.519), and JAMA Neurology (IF 2017: 11.460). Furthermore, Iris has served several times as an invited speaker at national meetings and gave 17 oral or poster presentations at international conferences or meetings in 8 different countries. In addition, Iris gave several post-academic courses, and is currently (co-)supervisor of 7 PhD projects.
I am a clinician-researcher neurologist, focused on pain research. My main research interest is pain modulation in humans, using psychophysical tools as well as neurophysiological and other ones. Conditioned pain modulation is at the center of my research work, trying to understand how the endogenous analgesia systems shape the human pain behavior, and how they can be used to better treat pain. The clinical substrates of my research are neuropathic pain, migraine, post traumatic headache, fibromyalgia, and post operative pain. My clinical work is in general neurology, focus on neuromuscular disorders, neuropathic pain and headaches. During last 3 years I also serve as Editor in Chief of IASP’s new online open access journal PAIN Reports.
Nicola is as an Academic Physiotherapist from the UK. I her early career she developed clinical expertise in musculoskeletal practice, working in the National Health Service, private and professional sport sectors. She moved into academia and gained her PhD from King’s College London in 2009 for her thesis entitled ‘Developing effective, deliverable and affordable models of care for osteoarthritis’. In 2011 she successfully gained an Arthritis Research UK 5 year Career Development Fellowship to continue her work in osteoarthritis, and became Associate Professor of Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation in 2013. In 2016 Nicola was appointed as Professor of Knowledge Mobilisation and Musculoskeletal Health, a joint appointment between UWE Bristol and the local NHS Clinical Commissioning group. Her current role supports the co-creation of clinically informed, relevant research; evidence informed commissioning; and the integration of research evidence into clinical practice.
Nicola’s expertise lies in Health services Research, and she has published widely on self-management of musculoskeletal conditions. Her work has been funded by the National Institute of Heath Research (NIHR), Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and Versus Arthritis. She is currently Chief Investigator on a large NIHR funded project investigating the clinical and cost-effectiveness of First Contact Physiotherapists for musculoskeletal conditions in Primary Care.
Dr. Jan Vollert is a bioinformatician with a PhD in Neurophysiology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany, who is currently working at Imperial College London. His research focusses on the application of statistical and computational models in pain research, mainly in Quantitative Sensory Testing. He has conducted analyses of quantitative sensory testing data of patients suffering from neuropathic pain that have been largely acknowledged in the field, honored by five first-authorship papers on QST in PAIN since 2015. He is part of the German Research Network on Neuropathic Pain (DFNS), and as such responsible for all questions related to statistical analyses of QST data within the European database.
Thomas Voets graduated as chemical engineer in 1993, obtained a postgraduate degree in cellular biology in 1994, and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences in 1998 under guidance of Prof. Bernd Nilius, all at the University of Leuven. From 1998 to 2001, he performed postdoctoral research at the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen (Germany), in the laboratory of prof. Erwin Neher. In 2002, he was appointed assistant professor at the University of Leuven, Faculty of Medicine, where he teaches Cell Biology, Cell Physiology and Biophysics to (bio)medical students. Since 2010, he is full professor and chairman of the Laboratory of Ion Channel Research within the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Leuven. Since 2017, he combines this professorship with a group leader position within the VIB-KU Leuven Center for Brain and Disease Research.
Thomas Voets published more than 200 papers in international biomedical research journals. His recent research focuses on Transient Receptor Potential (TRP) ion channels, molecular gateways for ions in the membranes that surround the cells in our body. The opening and closing of these TRP channels initiates calcium signals and electrical impulses that underlie key processes in various cells and tissues, including the central and peripheral nervous system, the heart, the musculoskeletal system and kidneys. Dysregulation of TRP channel function is the cause of a various severe inherited and acquired human diseases. The central aim of the research team of Thomas Voets is to provide better insight in the etiology of TRP-related diseases and to use this knowledge to develop novel therapeutic strategies for patients. In particular, recent research by his team revealed the fundamental roles of TRP channels in acute and chronic pain, and form the basis of translational research aimed at developing novel TRP channel-based analgesic drugs.
Dr. Adina Rusu (1977) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Psychology, University of Bochum, Germany and associate fellow at the Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, U.K. Dr. Rusu is a clinical psychologist, trained in cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy. In 2009 she obtained her PhD degree in Psychology at the University of London (Thesis: ‘Cognitive biases and future thinking in chronic pain’). She is a Psychology graduate of the University of Bochum, Germany (equivalent B.A. and M.A.). Afterwards she earned a postgraduate degree in Cognitive-Behavioural Psychotherapy and gained experience as a clinical psychologist in a pain management unit and psychiatric hospitals. She has worked as a psychotherapist with elderly people, children and adolescents in different settings. As an assistant professor, she has been involved in teaching health psychology, clinical psychology and stress management.
Her research program focuses on cognitive biases and future thinking in chronic pain and depression. In particular she is interested in investigating negative affectivity and distress in patients with chronic pain. In her past research she has revealed qualitative differences among patients with clinical depression and depressed pain patients. Finding further evidence for these differences may improve our understanding of the underlying cognitive and behavioural processes of adjustment and may lead to the development of new treatment options for depressed pain patients. Her major research interests include: 1) neuro-cognitive mechanisms and changes in musculoskeletal disorders, 2) risk factors and mechanisms in the development of pain, and 3) treatment and measurement in depressed pain patients. Dr. Rusu is a member of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) (www.iasp-pain.org), the Musculoskeletal Process of Care Collaboration Group (MPCC) (www.ihse.qmul.ac.uk/chs/research/gppc/locomotor/index.html) and the West Focus Knowledge Exchange – Health Network.
Esther Pogatzki-Zahn is an anesthesiologist, pain specialist and full professor in the Department of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain Medicine, University Hospital Muenster, Germany. Her main clinical work is pain management (acute, chronic and palliative) and she is head of the pain service at the University Clinic in Muenster since 13 years. Furthermore, she has been trained as a PhD in neuroscience (1998-2003) in the US (Baltimore and Iowa City) and runs now a basic science research lab at the University of Muenster. Her research group is aiming to provide insight into the neuropathology of incisional, chronic inflammatory, neuropathic and cancer related pain by using behavioral, electrophysiological and in-vitro studies in rodents and cooperates with other researchers in the field of omics and imaging. In addition, she is working with human surrogate models of postoperative and neuropathic pain and uses quantitative sensory testing (QST), imaging techniques and omics to explore acute and chronic pain in humans as well as chronic itch in volunteers and patients. Finally, she performs clinical studies and is involved in a number of international multicenter projects like Pain-Out, a large international acute pain registry. She is member of the Prospect Initiative (www.postoppain.org) and the DFNS e.V.. Prof. Pogatzki-Zahn won a number of national and international research awards like the IASP Collaboration Research Award, the EFIC Grünenthal Grant (E-G-G) and the Clinical scholar research award 2006 of the IARS, among others. She is part of several “pain” boards including the SIG Acute Pain of the IASP (currently the Co-Chair) and the European Society of Anaesthesiologists (Chair of the Scientific subcommittee 8, acute and chronic pain and palliative care), Member of the scientific program committee for the IASP Congress in Yokohama (2017) and Boston (2019) and the board of the German Pain Society. She published more than 130 original peer reviewed manuscripts, 45 review articles/ editorials and 16 Book chapters (h-Index: 35, Web of science).
Dr. Christopher Sivert Nielsen is a Research Professor Norwegian Institute of Public Health, and holds additional positions at the Department of Pain Management and Research at Oslo University Hospital and at the Department of Community Medicine at UiT –The Arctic University of Norway.
Dr. Nielsen is a clinical psychologist and epidemiologist specializing in the study of pain and related human characteristics. Dr. Nielsen has published extensively from Norwegian Twin Registry and was among the first to demonstrate that experimental pain sensitivity is heritable. Further studies have focused on genetic and environmental relationships between pain and psychological traits. He leads the Tromsø Pain Study, the largest experimental pain study worldwide with more than 30.000 examinations completed. The study size, high response rate (65%), wide age range (30-99) and availability of eight-year longitudinal follow-up data, make this a unique platform for studying clinical and experimental pain in the general population. The study has yielded new insight into the relationship between pain sensitivity and chronic pain conditions; provided evidence that both opioid and non-opioid analgesic use are associated with hyperalgesia; demonstrated that pain inhibitory mechanisms vary across sex and clinical pain status; and documented that pain tolerance is associated with low-grade systemic inflammation.
Ann Meulders is currently working as a FWO Postdoctoral Fellow in the Research Group Health Psychology at KU Leuven (0.5 fte) and she also holds a faculty position as an Assistant Professor at Maastricht University (0.5 fte). Dr. Meulders obtained her PhD in 2008 at the Center for the Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology (KU Leuven), on the role of learning processes and unpredictability in contextual fear. In 2009, she teamed up with Prof. Johan Vlaeyen and started translating and applying her fear conditioning expertise to the field of fear of pain. She joined the Body in Mind Research Group (UniSA, Australia) to collaborate with Prof. Lorimer Moseley in 2012. Also in 2012, she was one of the winners of the prestigious EFIC Grünenthal Grant, supporting young scientists early in their career to carry out innovative pain research. Her work concerns psychological mechanisms in the transition from acute to chronic pain. Her research interests in the recent years focused on learning processes in pain-related fear and more recently in avoidance. Dr. Meulders has recently been awarded a competitive NWO Innovational Research Grant (vidi scheme) to further pursue her interest in operant avoidance learning in the context of pain. Ann published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and 5 book chapters. She has been an invited speaker at several international pain and psychology conferences and is currently an Associate editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychopathology and Pain.
Steven J. Linton is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Director of the Center for Health and Medical Psychology (CHAMP). He combines research with teaching and clinical practice. His research focuses on the role of psychological factors in the development and treatment of pain. To this end he has conducted several impressive longitudinal and clinical studies to identify key processes in the etiology of chronic pain and disability. This has also resulted in theoretical advancements including the fear and avoidance model and a model for the interaction of emotions and pain. He has also worked diligently to advance clinical practice. A host of randomized controlled studies lay at the base of these psychologically oriented treatments for patients with severe chronic pain problems including exposure in-vivo and a hybrid, emotion-focused therapy that he has pioneered. Rather than simply treat chronic pain once developed, Professor Linton has also paved the way to an early identification system based on psychosocial factors for patients with back pain in primary care coupled to early, preventative interventions. Most recently his work has focused on implementing very early preventive interventions focusing on communication and problem solving techniques as well as evaluating the effects of a hybrid therapy for patients suffering chronic pain and disability.
As Professor of Clinical Psychology and scientific leader for the Center for Health and Medical Psychology his duties also involve the operation of the clinical psychology training program and a vibrant research agenda. He currently supervises several doctoral and master level students. He enjoys the great outdoors, self-sufficient gardening, and running!
Tuomas Lilius, MD, PhD, is a specialist in clinical pharmacology. He is adjunct professor of pharmacology at University of Helsinki and currently works as assistant professor at the Center for Translational Neuromedicine, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He received his medical degree in 2012 and a PhD in 2014 from the University of Helsinki. Dr. Lilius is currently studying the glymphatic system, a recently recognized fluid flow pathway in the brain that allows the interchange of cerebrospinal fluid and brain interstitial fluid. Tuomas’ work has focused on opioid pharmacology, pharmacokinetic interactions of anesthetics and analgesics, and the involvement of neuroinflammation in pain, both in translational and clinical settings.
Ed Keogh is Deputy Director of the Bath Centre for Pain Research and Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology, both based at the University of Bath in the UK. His PhD was in Psychology from Goldsmiths College, University of London (UK), where he examined the effect of anxiety on cognitive biases towards threatening information. Following a lectureship post in London, he moved to the University of Bath in 2003. Ed’s primary research interests focus on two core themes. The first is in sex and gender differences in pain, with a focus on the role of psychosocial factors. He is exploring social factors in men and women’s pain, especially those related to pain communication. The second interest is on the role that attention has in the perception and experience of pain. Here he focuses on the interruptive effects of pain on attention, as well as exploring biases in attention towards pain. His current interest are in bringing these two areas together, looking on whether there are sex and gender differences in attention to nonverbal pain signals. He has written extensively on these areas of pain, has over 100 publications, and regularly presents his work nationally and internationally.
Venerina is an Associate Professor in Physiotherapy at The University of Queensland, Australia. She leads the program of research on Facilitating Return to Pre-Injury Functioning at the RECOVER Injury Research Centre. Venerina has a rich background in occupational rehabilitation and injury management from the perspective of the insurer, provider and employer. These experiences have created a research portfolio focused on improving vocational outcomes for people with injuries or illnesses, which may be work-related (e.g. musculoskeletal neck pain), due to a road traffic crash (e.g. whiplash, traumatic brain injury) or acquired (e.g. mental health condition, acquired brain injury). Through research with relevant stakeholders (person, health professional, employer and insurer), Venerina has investigated the barriers and enablers a person may experience when attempting to return to, or remain at work after injury or illness. This research has led to the development of strategies (individual and workplace based) to improve or maintain work ability without negatively impacting productivity. She has published over 85 scholarly works in peer reviewed journals and books, and has been successful in obtaining AU$1.3 million in research funding. She is a strong advocate for the role of physiotherapists in the compensable arena to improve and / or maintain a person’s capacity for work.
Per Hansson, MD, DMSci, DDS, is a senior consultant, specialist in neurology and pain medicine at the Dept. of Pain Management and Research, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway and a professor of clinical pain research at Dept. of Molecular Medicine and Surgery, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. He received his dental and medical degrees from the Karolinska Institutet in 1979 and 1986, respectively, and his PhD in physiology at the same institute in 1985. He was appointed associate professor of physiology in 1991 and professor of clinical pain research in 2000.
Peripheral and central neuropathic pain, somatosensory testing, endogenous pain controlling systems and functional brain imaging represent major areas of interest in Professor Hansson’s research.
Professor Hansson is a reviewer for many scientific journals and has served as co-editor of Pain Reviews, on the editorial board of Pain, Clinical Updates and as field editor for clinical medicine/neurology of the European Journal of Pain. He has published more than 180 journal articles, position papers, reviews and book chapters, and has lectured at numerous conferences and symposia worldwide. He is co-editor of 2 books published by the IASP Press.
From 2003-2006 he was president of the Scandinavian Association for the Study of Pain. He served as Honorary Secretary of the European Federation of IASP Chapters from 2008-2011. He has served as external reviewer for the German Network on Neuropathic Pain, INSERM and the Wellcome Foundation sponsored London Pain Consortium.
Niels Eijkelkamp is Associate Professor at the Laboratory of Translational Immunology at the University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands. He received his PhD in 2009 at the Utrecht University under the mentorship of Cobi Heijnen and Annemieke Kavelaars where he worked on GRKs in the regulation of pain and inflammation. He then did his postdoctoral training at the University Medical Center Utrecht where he worked on intracellular signaling in sensory neurons and continued as a PostDoctoral fellow at in the laboratory of John Wood at the University College London where he further worked on signaling and mechanotransduction in pain.
Dr. Eijkelkamp’s current work focusses on elucidating the cellular and molecular basis of neuro-immune interactions in nociceptive processing and defining the role of mitochondria in the regulation of pathological pain states. A central discovery was the identification of a lysine-specific methyltransferase, FAM173b, that controls mitochondrial function in sensory neurons and the development of pathological pain. In addition, his work has identified intriguing roles of immune cell that regulate pain pathways in osteoarthritis and inflammation. Finally he has identified novel strategies to inhibit chronic pain by fusing anti-inflammatory cytokines (synerkines). Besides his work on generating basic insight into chronic pain, he also works on translation these findings to the clinic. This is exemplified by his current work on developing synerkines for the treatment of chronic pain and the work on using monocytes and their function as predictors of persisting juvenile idiopathic arthritis pain. His research has been supported by grants from the European Union, The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, and Arthritis Foundation among others.
Stefan Duschek is a Professor of Health Psychology at UMIT – University of Health Sciences Medical Informatics and Technology (Austria). A large part of his research activity is dedicated to the psychophysiology of chronic pain, particularly pertaining to disease-related alterations in cognition and emotional regulation and their biological foundations. He maintains close relationships, in terms of both research and teaching, with numerous European universities, including those of Granada, Jaén, Valencia, Palma de Mallorca, Bonn, Bamberg and Munich.
Professor Dr med Ralf Baron is Head of the Division of Neurological Pain Research and Therapy at the Department of Neurology, Christian-Albrechts-Universitaet Kiel, in Germany. From 1999-2004, he served as General Secretary of the German Interdisciplinary Pain Society (DIVS), from 2005-2016 he served as a Management Committee Member of the Neuropathic Pain Special Interest Group (NeuPSIG) of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and from 2008-2010 as a board member of the Deutsche Schmerzgesellschaft. He has been a Councilor of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) from 2010-2016.
His main research interest is the pathophysiology and therapy of neuropathic pain states. He has intensive scientific collaborations with several researchers worldwide, e.g., Professor HL Fields, San Francisco, USA, and Professor TS Jensen, Aarhus, Denmark.
Professor Baron is associate editor and reviewer for many scientific journals (Advisory Board Member for Nature Reviews Neurology, Associate Editor for the European Journal of Pain). He has been the recipient of the German Pain Award, the Heinrich-Pette-Award of the German Neurological Society and the Sertürner-Award. In 1998 he was awarded a Feodor Lynen fellowship by the German Humboldt Foundation and was visiting professor at the Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco.
Professor Baron has authored more than 320 publications with his outstanding and motivated research team, and has lectured at numerous conferences and symposia worldwide.
Dr Al-Kaisy is currently Clinical Lead of the Pain Management and Neuromodulation Centre at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS trust. He trained in Chronic Pain Medicine at The Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Liverpool. He has a fellowship in Chronic Pain Management at University of Toronto Hospital, Canada.
Dr Al-Kaisy has an international reputation as a leading expert in Pain Management and has extensive experience in working toward the advancement of electrical neuromodulation techniques within this specialty.
Dr Al-Kaisy led the first multicenter and multinational study on the safety and efficacy of 10kHz SCS in the management of Failed Back Surgery Syndrome (FBSS). He has subsequently clinically pioneered the use of this novel therapy in the management of different chronic pain conditions including the feasibility study on chronic back patients without prior surgery. He has successfully designed groundbreaking research including a randomized double blind placebo control study examining different frequency in the management of FBSS. He is the innovator of a number techniques including transgrade dorsal root ganglion stimulation using monopolar electrical stimulation.
Dr Al-Kaisy continues to teach and lecture on essential and pioneering topics in pain management in the United States, Europe, Australia and Asia. He is the chair of the biannual London Spine Pain Symposium at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital.
Vicky Chapman was appointed to Chair in Neuropharmacology in 2008 in the School of Life Sciences, University of Nottingham. She leads a research group focused on the mechanisms of pain and central sensitization. Experimental approaches include behavioural testing, spinal and supraspinal electrophysiology, ex vivo analysis of tissues, and in collaboration small animal fMRI and lipidomic mass spectrometry methods for the study of pain mechanisms in a range of models. She is Deputy Director of the Arthritis Research UK Pain Centre, with a current focus on peripheral and central mechanisms of osteoarthritis pain. She has published over a 100 peer reviewed articles (orcid.org/0000-0002-7969-2788).
Qualifications:
– 2018: PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy
– 2013: Master of Science in Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy
Present positions:
– Postdoctoral researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium) – FWO (Research Foundation Flanders) Grant;
– Project coordinator FWO-TBM-project “Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia in patients with chronic spinal pain: a multi-center RCT”
– (Board) member of the international ‘Pain in Motion’ research group (2013 – present);
– Member of the SPINE research group at Ghent University (2013 – present);
– Member of the International Association for the Study of Pain (2018 – present)
o SIG Pain, Mind and Movement (2018 – present);
o SIG Musculoskeletal Pain (2018 – present)
– Voluntary physiotherapist at the University Hospital Brussels;
– Member of the organizing and scientific committee of the 3th international Pain Science in Motion Colloquium (Savona, Italy, 2019);
Brief summary of research experience:
– Special interest in cognition-targeted rehabilitation therapy, exercise neurophysiology, nutritional aspects, pain neuroscience education and communication in people with (chronic) pain;
– 25 full papers (13 as first author) published or accepted for publication in international peer-reviewed journals, like JAMA Neurology (Q1/D1), Physical Therapy Journal (Q1), etc.;
– 5 ‘letters to the Editor’, guest editorials or short papers published in international peer-reviewed journals (abstracts not included – 2 as first and 2 as last author) including 1 ‘Letter in reply’ in ‘JAMA Neurology’;
– 1 full-text paper published in (inter)national journals without peer-review;
– 1 chapter published in (inter)national handbooks;
– h-index: 7; mean number of cites/paper: 10.5; and 242 times cited in the scientific literature (WoS – query date: 2018-11-21);
– 16 invited lectures at international meetings / conferences in 5 different countries;
– 9 invited 2-day post academic education and refresher courses in 6 different countries (the Netherlands, France, Brazil, Belgium, USA and Spain);
Gary Macfarlane is Dean for Research and Knowledge Exchange (LIfe Sciences and Medicine). He has also held the Chair in Epidemiology (Clinical) at The University of Aberdeen since 2005 and previously held the same post at The University of Manchester from 1999. He is an Honorary Consultant in the Department of Public Health in NHS Grampian. He trained in Statistics/ Computing Science and then Medicine at The University of Glasgow before undertaking his PhD at The University of Bristol. He worked at the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan before leading a programme of chronic pain research at the Arthritis Research UK Epidemiology Unit at the University of Manchester.
He leads the Epidemiology group at the University of Aberdeen which focusses its research in Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases (RMD). The RMD programme has programmes of research on: mechanisms of disease onset and outcome (observational epidemiology), identifying effective management for RMDs (Clinical trials and evidence synthesis), and designing optimal delivery of care (health services research). The clinical focus is on common complex conditions (including musculoskeletal pain and fatigue, fibromyalgia, and early osteoarthritis), inflammatory conditions, and rare diseases. The current programme has funding of ~£6m, and we run the British Society of Rheumatology Biologics Register in Ankylosing Spondylitis (BSRBR-AS) and the BSR register in Psoriatic Arthritis (BSR-PsA). We are also part of the Arthritis Research UK/Medical Research Council Centre for Musculoskeletal Health and Work (with University of Southampton). Professor Macfarlane is a Chartered Statistician of the Royal Statistical Society and a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine.
Professor Asbjørn Mohr Drewes gained his medical degree from Aarhus University, Denmark in 1983. He defended a Ph.D. thesis at Aalborg University in 1998 and a doctoral thesis (DMSc) at Aarhus University in 1999. Prof Drewes is specialist in internal medicine, gastroenterology and hepatology. He also holds a European Master in Pain Medicine. Since 1999 he has been Professor (Chair) at the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Aalborg University Hospital. He is also Director of the research group Mech-Sense (www.mech-sense.com) and the Centre for Pancreatic Diseases at Aalborg University Hospital.
Prof Drewes is author of 510 publications and has presented more than 500 oral and poster presentations at scientific meetings. He has an H-index of 51, and is a widely recognised expert in visceral pain pancreatology, analgesics, motility and brain-gut interactions. As such he is a frequent speaker and chairman at international congresses, and has been organizer of many international meetings. Currently he is member of the scientific board of European Society of Neurogastroenterology and since 2012 he has been the President of Scandinavian Association for Neurogastroenterology and Motility. He has initiated and participated in several Phase I-III studies mainly within opioids and other analgesics.
He has received several awards and he’s research has been funded from many different national and international foundations such as the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, National Institute of Health, EU 7th Framework Programme (grant No. # 223630), a research grant (#10-092786/DSF) offered by the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, and the very prestigious “Hagedorn Prize” from Novo Nordisk Foundation.
Prof Drewes has supervised 48 Ph.D. students and is currently supervisor for 8. He teaches medical students and students in health technology at Aalborg University and gives lectures for postdocs in pancreatology, pain, gastroenterology and pharmacology. His current research interests include visceral pain, diseases of the pancreas, pharmacology of analgesics, motility, electrophysiology and imaging.
Wilco Achterberg (1963) is an elderly care physician and a professor of institutional care and elderly care medicine in Leiden, the Netherlands, since October 2010. His research focus is on the most vulnerable persons, most of whom live in nursing homes, and is centred around three themes: pain and quality of life in dementia, palliative care in dementia and geriatric rehabilitation. He is the chair of a large academic nursing home network, and responsible for the training of 70 residents in elderly care medicine. Wilco was vice-chair of the EU COST action Pain in Cognitive impairment. Next to numerous international scientific publications, he has given lectures at many international congresses and chaired symposia nationally and internationally. Next to that he has been an invited lecturer amongst others in London 2015 on palliative care in dementia, Beijing 2016 on geriatric rehabilitation, Sao Paolo 2017 on ageing, London 2018 (BGS): Geriatric Training of physicians and he is invited to speak in Sydney (Dutch Consulate, November 21st 2018) on societal challenges of ageing.
Neil’s onset of arthritis at the age of three had a serious impact on his childhood. He focused most of his career on representing the interests of patients in the UK and Europe. In 2011 he set up Neil Betteridge Associates (UK), an international consultancy offering patient insight to organisations that support people with chronic pain, rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases and other long term conditions.
He is a long standing member of the EULAR Executive Committee, acting as EULAR’s Liaison Officer for Public Affairs, and has previously been its Vice President, representing the patient group network PARE, twice.
He also sits on the International Co-ordinating Council of the Global Alliance for Musculoskeletal Health; acts as adviser to the European Alliance for Patient Access (EAfPA); Co-Chairs the Chronic Pain Policy Coalition; and is a Patient Adviser to NHS England on Specialised Pain Services. Formerly he was CEO of the UK patient group Arthritis Care; Chair of the UK umbrella body for MSK, ARMA; Strategic Adviser, British Society for Rheumatology; Patient Adviser, Royal College of Physicians; and has been a UK ministerial adviser on both health and disability issues.
Amanda C de C Williams is an academic and clinical psychologist at University College London, one of the world’s highest ranked for psychology, and at the Pain Management Centre, University College London Hospital. She also works for the International Centre for Health and Human Rights. She has worked in the pain field for over 30 years, as a clinician and as a researcher, with particular interests in evaluating psychologically-based treatments, including systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and national and international guidelines. She also works on expression of pain and its interpretation by clinicians; on pain from torture; and on the use of responsive technology to extend healthcare. She has written over 250 papers and chapters on aspects of pain and psychology, and presents at national and international pain meetings.
Dr. Westbrook a seasoned drug discoverer, the inventor of numerous patents who worked at Pfizer, Sandwich for c. 18 years in a variety of roles and departments including Urology, Cardiovascular/Metabolic Disease and Pain. Whilst in the Pain therapeutic area, Simon worked on the anti-NGF program with the role of identifying novel means of manipulating the neurotrophin pathway.
In September 2012 Simon founded Levicept, a Pfizer-spun out company, with the goal of developing a novel and safe neurotrophin modulator for the treatment of chronic pain.
In the last 31 years, Dr Villanueva has worked as full-time researcher in Pain Neurobiology at the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM). His research interests have centered on translational, rodent studies of central mechanisms involved in pain modulation. His doctoral dissertations were devoted to studies of the functional architecture of descending bulbospinal systems involved in pain modulation, termed Diffuse Noxious Inhibitory Controls (DNIC). Afterwards, Dr Villanueva developed his own independent research program devoted to the study of pain networks, by combining in vivo electrophysiology with high-resolution neuroanatomical tracing and computer-assisted reconstruction imaging techniques. He discovered in rats and monkeys a brainstem region (Subnucleus Reticularis Dorsalis) that participates in DNIC and conveys noxious inputs from the whole-body regions to the brain. Since then he has established a unique research program and raised teams devoted to the assessment of maladaptive mechanisms of pain modulation elicited by dysfunctions of trigeminal, hypothalamic and/or cortical networks. He made significant discoveries, including a thalamic relay of noxious inputs from the whole-body surface to the rat’s neocortex layer I, implicated in cortical rhythmicity changes elicited by painful inputs. He showed that corticothalamic networks issued from the primary sensory cortex are involved in a selective discrimination of tactile versus noxious inputs. He identified also a hypothalamic link of trigemino-vascular pain/stress/sensitization comorbidity mechanisms involved in migraine and cluster headaches. By combining high spatiotemporal resolution brain ultrasound imaging with electrophysiology in rats, he recently established a direct link between visual cortex disturbances elicited by spreading depression and cortical, craniofacial pain sensitization mechanisms at the origin of migraine.
Dr Villanueva has trained undergraduate, graduate students, post-doctoral research fellows from several countries and teach pain neurobiology and pharmacology in graduate and post-graduate programs of Medical and Faculties of Sciences. He has been Chair of EFIC Committee on Research, Co-Coordinator of the EFIC Krakow School on Translational Pain Research, member of the Editorial Board of the European Journal of Pain and Coordinator of exchange programs in life sciences and health between France, Colombia and Mexico. His research projects have resulted in more than 80 manuscripts published in peer-reviewed journals, 30 Book chapters and 100 abstracts.
He also completed a postgraduate training in Health Law and Health Ethics at the University of Antwerp and wrote a thesis on “The scope and enforceability of practice guidelines”. He authored 86 publications in PubMed indexed journals. He was (co)author of 38 book chapters. He holds functions in the editorial board of several journals and is the past editor of the Dutch and English version of the guidelines “Evidence based interventional pain medicine according to clinical diagnoses”.
He is honorary treasurer of the World Institute of Pain (WIP) Jan Van Zundert is anesthesiologist, head of the Multidisciplinary Pain Centre of the Hospital Oost Limburg, Belgium. He is associate professor at the Maastricht University Medical Centre.
He obtained the doctoral degree in Medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium and completed a 5 years residency in anesthesiology and reanimation at the University hospital Antwerp and specialized in pain medicine at the Radboud University Nijmegen.
He obtained his PhD at the Maastricht University with the thesis: “The use of pulsed radiofrequency in the treatment of chronic pain”. He followed a postgraduate training in Health Policy and management at the Catholic University of Leuven and wrote a thesis on “The treatment of (chronic) low back pain in a multidisciplinary pain center: effects and costs”
Prof. dr. C. Paul van Wilgen is a Physical Therapist, Psychologist and Epidemiologist. He is professor at the Vrije University Belgium Faculty of Physical Education & Physiotherapy and member of the international research group pain in motion (www.paininmotion.be) After working as a clinician and researcher at the University Medical Centre in Groningen he obtained his PhD in 2004. After several years working as a post-doc he initiated Transcare (www.transcare.nl) a transdisciplinary pain management centre for patients with persisting pain and chronic fatigue in the Netherlands. He (co)authored more than 120 scientific publications and 4 books on pain and painmanagement e.g. pain education and graded activity. His fields of expertise are; central sensitization processes in patient with persisting pain, the psychosocial factors related to pain and central sensitization, pain-education, lifestyle and trans-and multidisciplinary collaboration in patients with pain.
Maurits van Tulder is professor of Health Technology Assessment and head of the department of Health Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He also has a position as professor of Evidence-Based Physiotherapy & Occupational Therapy at Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark. His main research interest is effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of interventions. He has ample expertise in designing and analysing randomized controlled trials, economic evaluations and systematic reviews in the field of musculoskeletal disorders. He was one of the principal investigators responsible for the MinT trial on the effect of radiofrequency denervation for patients with chronic low back pain.
Maurits van Tulder has been co-editor of the Cochrane Back and Neck Group for the last 12 years and has been chairman or committee member for at least 5 low back pain and several other national and international clinical guidelines.
Emanuel van den Broeke is postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Louvain in Belgium (UCLouvain). His research focusses on pain plasticity and in particular on the phenomenon of “central sensitization”; the increase responsiveness of nociceptive neurons in the central nervous system. Central sensitization is widely believed to be an important factor contributing to persistent pain. The aim of his research is to identify biomarkers for CS in humans. Dr. van den Broeke has authored more than 20 publications in international peer-reviewed scientific journals and publishes in the most rigorous and top journals of his field, such as J Physiol, J Neurophysiol, Clin Neurophysiol. Besides, he wrote book chapters for the book Postoperative Pain: Science and Clinical Practice and the book Pain after Surgery that is published in the context of the IASP’s 2017 Global Year Against Pain, both published by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) Dr. van den Broeke has received the EFIC-Grünenthal grant and recently a personal fellowship through the Fonds de Recherche Clinique (FRC) of the University of Louvain (UCLouvain).
Stefaan Van Damme focuses on fundamental-theoretical as well as more applied research on the interplay between cognitive, affective, and motivational processes related to (chronic) pain. His research career began in 2000 at Ghent University, when he started a PhD under the supervision of Geert Crombez. The PhD project consisted of a series of fundamental studies disentangling attentional processes related to pain processing and involved a collaboration with Chris Eccleston (Bath). After receiving his doctoral degree in 2004, he became a post-doc research fellow, funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), and extended his fundamental work on attentional pain processing by focusing on cross-model interactions. A research visit in Oxford (UK) resulted in a collaboration with Charles Spence, Lorimer Moseley, and Alberto Gallace. For his research in the area of pain and attention, Stefaan received several awards such as the EFIC Grünenthal Grant (2004), Belgian Pain Society Prize (2007), and the IASP Early Career Research Grant (2008). In 2009 he was appointed at Ghent University, where he currently holds a position as Associate Professor. Since then Stefaan broadened his scope and started to adopt a broader self-regulation perspective on pain incorporating cognitive, affective, and motivational processes. In the following years, he received funding for 3 research projects, and supervised several PhD students (Lore Van Hulle, Charlotte Vanden Bulcke, Wouter Durnez). Currently, he also (co-)supervises PhD students focusiing on mindfulness (Björn Prins) and goal adjustment in chronic illness (Gunther Van Bost). In 2015 he received funding for his interdisciplinary research initiative on the interplay between sensorimotor and attentional processes in (back) pain. The project uses behavioral and electrophysiological (EEG/EMG) methods to assess somatosensory and sensorimotor processing during back-related movements. He (co-)supervises 2 PhD students (Amanda Clauwaert, Stijn Schouppe) within this project. In 2018, Stefaan received FWO funding for a new research project in collaboration with Diane Torta (Leuven) and Ann Meulders (Maastricht), focusing on the effects of motor action on pain processing within a motivational context, again using a combination of behavioral and EEG measures. A new PhD student (Eleana Pinto) recently started working on this project.
Trained in Genetic Epidemiology at the University of California Berkeley, Ana Valdes is Associate Professor of musculoskeletal genetics at the University of Nottingham. For the past 15 years extensively worked in the field of osteoarthritis having participated in several of the large-consortia for OA genetics. She has pioneered work on candidate gene associations to symptomatic osteoarthritis and published the first genome wide association study on neuropathic pain symptoms post total joint replacement. Her work spans genetics and metabolomic profiling of this and other common diseases with specific emphasis on pain. Her current emphasis is to understand the molecular basis of OA pain using metabolomic and lipidomic approaches linking the omic data to quantitative sensory testing phenotypes.
Prof Brigitte Tampin is a Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist and works as an Advanced Scope Physiotherapist at the Neurosurgery Spinal Clinic, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth, Western Australia. In her role she assesses patients with spinal pain to determine optimal treatment strategies (surgery and non-invasive management). Brigitte obtained her Physiotherapy undergraduate training in Germany and her postgraduate training (Grad.Dip.Manip.Ther, MSc, PhD) at Curtin University/Perth. She is a clinical researcher, she holds a part time Professorship in Physiotherapy at Hochschule Osnabrück, University of Applied Sciences, Germany and she is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Science, Curtin University, Perth. She obtained a post-doc Clinician Research Fellowship from the Western Australian Department of Health and Raine Medical Research Foundation.
Brigitte has a strong clinical and research background and growing national and international reputation in the assessment and management of neuro-musculoskeletal pain disorders and neuropathic pain. Her PhD studies addressed the assessment of neuropathic pain in patients with nerve-related neck-arm pain, using the NeuPSIG grading system for neuropathic pain, the quantitative sensory testing (QST) protocol of the German Research Network on Neuropathic Pain (DFNS) and neuropathic pain screening tools.
Some of her post-doctoral studies investigated (i) the assessment of neuropathic pain and altered sensory nerve function in patients with lumbar radicular pain, using QST and (ii) if altered sensory profiles may be associated with pain persistency in patients under conservative management and in patients following lumbar discectomy. Brigitte will present her study findings and demonstrate the heterogeneity of patients with lumbar radicular pain. Her combined roles as clinician, researcher and educator place her in a unique position to translate her research findings into clinical practice.
Cathy Stannard has worked as a Consultant in Pain Medicine for 23 years and is now a Consultant in Complex Pain and Pain Transformation Programme Clinical Lead for NHS Gloucestershire CCG. She has written numerous chapters and four textbooks on aspects of pain management, evidence, and opioid therapy in particular and published widely on the use of opioids for persistent pain and the potential implications of analgesic prescribing for public health. She has chaired working groups for the Medical Royal Colleges, professional organisations and policymakers on Pain and Substance Misuse, Best Practice in Opioid Prescribing, Pain and Addiction and Pain Management in Secure Environments. Cathy is involved in the work of a number of bodies including, PHE, MHRA, European Medicines Agency, and the Cochrane collaboration. She is board member of the IASP special interest group on Systematic Reviews and Outcome Evaluation, Member of the IASP International Taskforce on Opioids and group member for the WHO Guideline on Cancer Pain Management. Cathy is currently Clinical lead for the NICE Guideline on Chronic Pain. She has a busy schedule of lectures nationally and internationally on use of opioids and on problem opioid use to policymakers, professionals working in the field of pain and other medical disciplines. She has run multidisciplinary services for patients on high dose opioids and patients with challenging psychiatric co-morbidity. She has recently led a national strategy for improving pain management in prisons and provides in-reach pain services to five prisons in the South West of England. Cathy frequently contributes to conversations about pain, opioids and painkiller addiction in both written and broadcast media.
Dusica M. Stamenkovic, MD, PhD, Anesthesiologist, Assoc. Prof. of Anesthesiology, Medical faculty, University of Defense in Belgrade, Serbia
EDUCATION Doctor of philosophy (PhD) awarded at Medical School, University of Belgrade (2004). Master of Science Oncology, Medical School, University of Belgrade (1999). MD top ten percentile in the class (GPA of 9.13), Medical School, University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia (1994). Residency training. Medical School, University of Belgrade, Military Medical Academy in Belgrade, Clinic for Anesthesia and Intensive Therapy (1996-2000).
APPOINTMENTS Anesthesiologist, Military Medical Academy, Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Belgrade, Serbia (2008-present), Instructor in anesthesiology, Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis, Department of Anesthesiology, St. Louis, MO, USA (2005.-2007). Research Fellow in liver transplant, Anesthesia Department, St James’s University Hospital, Leeds, United Kingdom (2004-2005).
TEACHING POSITIONS Associate Professor of Anesthesiology, Medical School Military Medical Adacemy, University of Defence in Belgrade (2014), Visiting Professor, Attending Anesthesiologist, Washington University School of Medicine in Saint Louis, Department of Anesthesiology, St. Louis, MO, USA (2005-2007).
RESERCH AND PUBLICATIONS Field of interest includes application of noninvasive cortical stimulation for acute pain treatment, chronic postICU pain, preoperative anxiety and consequences on postoperative recovery and improvement of postoperative pain management (EFIC PainOut Project). Editor of book (Acute postoperative pain), author and co-author in four chapters in national and international books. Author and co-author of 83 papers in international (39) and national (44) medical journals. Invited speaker at international (23) and national (29) meetings. Author and co-author of 59 abstracts published in international conference proceedings (41) and national conference proceedings (18). Participation in local, regional, and national activities including organization of Pain Service at Department of Anesthesiology, Military Medical Academy, Board member of Serbian Pain Society (SePaS), Serbian Association of Anesthesiologists and Intesivists (SAAI). Member of Organizing and Scientific Committee of Belgrade International Symposium on Pain (2017,2018,2019); Serbian Congress of Anesthesiologists and Intesivists (2014;2018), President of the Comitee for standards and protocols appointed by SAAI (2014-2018); Final Four! Residents’ Compatition, Founder and Organizer, Associate editor in BMC Anesthesiology and Serbian Journal of Anaesthesia and Intensive Therapy (SJAIT). Reviewer in four international journals.
I am a medical doctor and neuroscientist working both as resident in Psychiatry at the Geneva University Hospital and as scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL).
During my PhD, I worked on bodily self-consciousness with Prof. Olaf Blanke focusing mostly on multisensory integration and body representation. I developed a series of protocols using multisensory stimulation to achieve pain relief in chronic pain patients.
During my presentation I will present some of my work aiming at developing and at testing new cognitive neuroprosthetics for patients with distorted body experiences. In particular, I will propose a series of clinical studies examining how multisensory stimulation protocol merging tactile, neu-rostimulation or interoceptive signals with visual information provided through advanced mixed reality systems, can be clinically relevant to investigate body representation disorders, alleviate chronic pain and restore normal body experience.
Prof. Matthew Smuck, MD is the Chief of PM&R and Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Stanford University. He is also the Medical Director of Rehabilitation Services for Stanford Healthcare where he specializes in the comprehensive conservative management of spine disorders. He is a physician leader and current Vice President of the Spine Intervention Society (SIS), and has served on the Board of Directors of the North American Spine Society (NASS) and the Foundation for PM&R. Dr. Smuck is also an award-winning researcher who pioneered the new field of physical performance monitoring. He directs the Wearable Health Lab at Stanford, investigating medical applications of mobile technology to improve musculoskeletal and neurologic disease detection, treatment and prevention. His work is recognized by numerous research society awards and publication awards, including the ISSLS Medtronic Award in 2012, the American Academy of PM&R’s 2014 President’s Citation Award, the PM&R Journal’s 2015 Best Original Research Award, the 2016 ISSLS Prize, and The Spine Journal’s Outstanding Paper Award in 2013, 2016, 2017 & 2018.
Prof. dr Rob J.E.M. Smeets (1964) is a physiatrist since 1995 and received his PhD in medicine in 2006 (effectiveness of different treatment modalities for chronic disabling low back pain and measuring performance). From 1995 until 2008 he worked as a physiatrist at Libra Rehabilitation and Audiology in Eindhoven. From may 2008 until may 2009 he worked as a research fellow at the George Institute of Global Health, affiliated with the University of Sydney, in Sydney, Australia. In June 2009 he was appointed full professor in Rehabilitation Medicine (0.5 fte) and is working as physiatrist at CIR Revalidatie (0.6) at Eindhoven and Zwolle.
He specialized in the physical as well as cognitive behavioral treatments of chronic musculoskeletal pain and chronic fatigue patients and is responsible for the development, research and implementation of new diagnostic tools and treatments for these patients. He has successfully transferred the clinical department of Rehabilitation Medicine into an innovative academic working place and developed new diagnostic and treatment care pathways between primary and secondary care, especially in the field of musculoskeletal disorders.
Other research topics are mediating and moderating processes and clinimetrics of outcome measures including performance tasks. He has been involved in several (inter)national guideline committees, (past) chair of the International Association of the Study of Pain (IASP) special interest group op Pain & Movement, chair of scientific working group of the Dutch Association of Rehabilitation Medicine (2011-2014), and member (till 2014) of the scientific committee of the 7th World Congress of World Institute of Pain (2014). He is internationally recognized in the area of musculoskeletal pain research as well as rehabilitation medicine. He has served >70 times as keynote, obtained >5 million Euro of grants and co(authored) >140 international peer reviewed articles. Although he only started publishing in 2006, his work has been cited >5000 times and has an H-index of 32 (ISI Web of Knowledge) and 45 (Google Scholar). He has supervised 14 PhD’s and 4 postdocs and is currently supervising 13 PhD’s, including 2 in Belgium and 1 from Germany. He is associate editor of Pain Practice and European Journal of Physiotherapy.
Pierre Sirois was born in Quebec City the 12th December 1945, has obtained a B.A. from Laval University, a B.Sc. in Biochemistry, a M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from University of Sherbrooke. Three years of postdoctoral studies at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the Imperial College of Science and Technology of London and at the Hospital for Sick Children of Toronto in pharmacology and immunology have completed his education. He then joined the Medical School of University of Sherbrooke in 1978 and has been promoted full professor of Pharmacology in 1987. He has been Chair of the Department of Pharmacology from 1987 to 1999. During his years at the direction of the Department of Pharmacology, Dr. Sirois has trained a number of pharmacologists and funded the Institute of Pharmacology of Sherbrooke. He is now adjunct professor of Laval University Medical School (Quebec City). He also created two biotech companies: IPS Pharma Inc. which developed a drug for diabetic complications (mainly neuropathic pain) and IPS Therapeutique Inc., a successful CRO evaluating the Efficacy and Safety pharmacology of NCEs. The research interests of Dr. Sirois are focused on the pathophysiology inflammatory reactions and asthma. Dr. Sirois has played a major role in the characterization of the structure of SRS-A, now called leukotrienes, and of their pharmacological activities. He is the author of more than 360 publications and 550 abstracts in international journals. He has been invited to deliver more than 300 conferences in various countries. Dr. Sirois has been Scholar of the Medical Research Council of Canada and the “Fonds de la recherche en santé du Québec” for a number of years. He also received selected awards including the Medical Research Council Scientist Award and was knighted of “L’Ordre de la Pléiade” from the Quebec Government. He has been a member of numerous in-house, university and national committees and on the board of many companies and associations. He is an executive editor of international scientific journal and on the Editorial Board of many others. Other interests: Dr. Sirois is a certified multi-engine and instrument-rated pilot.
Dr. Simons is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. She direct the Stanford Biobehavioral Pediatric Pain (BPP) Lab and is clinical psychologist who evaluates and treats children and adolescents who present with chronic pain in Pediatric Pain Management Clinic at Stanford Children’s Health. Dr. Simons’ research spans assessment scale development, treatment intervention, and experimental and neuroimaging methods to gain a mechanistic understanding of altered psychological processes in children with chronic pain and their parents.
Vinil Shah, MD, is an Assistant professor of Radiology in the Neuroradiology subspecialty in the Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at the University of California, San Francisco. He received his medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Pennsylvania and completed a one-year internship at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York in 2007. Dr. Shah did his Radiology residency from 2007-2011 at UCSF, serving as chief resident in 2010. From 2011-2013, he completed a clinical fellowship and a Chief fellowship in Neuroradiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. From 2013-2014, Dr. Shah was a clinical fellow in Musculoskeletal Imaging and Intervention at the same institution. In August 2014, Dr. Shah accepted the position of Assistant Professor of Clinical Radiology in Neuroradiology at UCSF.
Dr. Shah’s research interests include studying spinal imaging biomarkers to help guide intervention and assessing clinical outcomes of spine intervention. Other interests include structured reporting, teaching, and radiology curricula development. He is actively involved in teaching, lecturing nationally and internationally, and is an instructor of the Spine Intervention Society. Dr. Shah is also the neuroradiology fellowship program director at UCSF.
Katharina Schmidt has studied psychology in Hamburg, Germany.
After her studies she finished her PhD in 2016 at Ulrike Bingel’s pain & cognition lab in Hamburg. The topic of her thesis was the interaction of pain and cognitive processes, specifically modulating influences, such as the stimulated body site or the influence of expectation on the interruptive function of pain.
Since 2016 she is working as a postdoc researcher at the University Hospital in Essen, Germany with Ulrike Bingel. She is currently investigating learning processes in the context of pain using fear conditioning experimental pain paradigms and clinical open label placebo paradigms.
Andreas Schilder works at the Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg in the Group of Prof. Treede. He supervises and leads the practical training sessions for Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) in Mannheim, Germany. In research, Andreas investigates the contribution of fascia and low back muscles to low-back pain.
He showed that a stimulation of the low-back fascia induces intense tonic pain with a strong affective component and a pain radiation similar to acute LBP. A high-frequency stimulation of the fascia results in long-lasting changes of electrical evoked pain. Furthermore, Andreas showed that stimulation of different soft tissues in the lower back revealed distinct pain quality patterns for muscle vs fascia. The “deep pain” qualities point towards muscle as the appropriate target, whereas “heat pain” or “sharp pain” qualities point towards fascia. The contribution to pain research of his past studies is that low back pain patients, suffering from spreading strong pain with high affective, sharp pain qualities might exhibit a structural change within the fascia.
Andreas presented his studies at different congresses such as the World Congress on Pain (IASP), International Fascia Congress and German Pain Congress. Recently, he received the Vladimir-Janda-Award 2018 for his work in the fascia research.
Prof. Axel Schäfer is a physiotherapist with musculoskeletal specialisation. Having been trained in Germany, he completed his master’s degree and PhD at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. In his PhD studies, Axel developed and validated a classification system for low back related leg pain. Currently, Axel teaches and carries out research at the University of Applied Science and Art in Hildesheim, Germany where he holds a professorship for therapy research.
Axel’s main teaching areas are quantitative research methods, evidence based practice and clinical reasoning. Axel has published more than 30 peer reviewed articles, serves as reviewer for several national and international journals and is editor in chief for the International Journal of Health Professions (IJHP). He is board member of the German Association for Physiotherapy Science (DGPTW) and the Association for Promoting Research in the Health Professions (VFWG).
In his research, Axel covers the maintenance, restoration and promotion of musculoskeletal health, especially focusing the topics chronic musculoskeletal pain, movement analysis and eHealth. Post-doctoral research comprises the validation of physiotherapy assessments and movement analysis, investigation of pain mechanisms for low back pain and nerve related pain as well as efficacy and effectiveness of eHealth interventions.
Combining clinical and research perspectives, Axel will present a mechanism based classification system as well as conservative management strategies for patients with low back related leg pain.
Giorgio Sandrini is Full Professor of Neurology in the University of Pavia, , Italy and he developed his clinical activity mainly as Chairman of the Department of Neurology and Neurorehabilitation at the Institute of Neurology, “C. Mondino” Foundation, and as Director of University Centre for Adaptive Disorders and Headache (UCADH).
The main fields of his research are neurorehabilitation,headache and neurophysiology of pain.He published more than 300 articles concerning these topics.
He promoted several research and Congresses as President of the European Federation of the Neuro-Rehabilitation Societies and as President of the Italian Society of Neurorehabilitation. In particular,he was Chairman of an European Committee on Curriculum in Neurorehabilitation.
About the field of headache,he was Chairman of the International Headache Society Italian Linguistic Special Interest Group and Co-Chairman with Prof.L.Friberg of the European Federation of Neurological Societies Task Force on Neurophysiological Tests and Neuroimaging Procedures in Non-acute Headache.
The guidelines on neurophysiological tests and neuroimaging in non-acute headache define when it is usefull to carry out an investigation in these patients and they give a contribution
about the instrumental markers in headache.
If pathogenetic mechanisms are different in migraine and tension type headache is yet argument of debate . Neurophysiological investigations,biological markers as well as neuroimaging studies gave a contribution to clarify this controversial issue.
Since 2014 Prof. Rolke is Chair and Director of the Department of Palliative Medicine, RWTH Aachen University. Before he was the Assistant Medical Director of the Department of Palliative Medicine (Director Prof. Lukas Radbruch) at the University Hospital of Bonn. He worked before as a neurologist (senior physician) in the Department of Neurology, University of Mainz, Germany. For some years, he also joined the pain research group of Prof. Rolf-Detlef Treede (Neurophysiology of pain, former IASP president).
Specifically, his research interests include the pathophysiology and therapy of neuropathic cancer pain. He was involved in the development of the protocol for the implementation of quantitative sensory testing in the context of the German Research Network on Neuropathic Pain (DFNS). He managed nationwide training sessions in this methodology for the measurement of pain sensitivity. Within the neuro-scientific focus and palliative medicine approach of the University Clinics of Mainz, Bonn and Aachen, he conducted studies in the area of “back pain”, “neuropathic pain” and “cancer pain”. Prof. Rolke is first author of several internationally acclaimed studies in high level journals. In 2007, he won the 1st prize for clinical pain research of the German Pain Association, the most prestigious German pain prize. Prof. Rolke was member of the Research Committee and is editor of a patient´s guide of this society. He gave numerous lectures in the aforementioned Universities and organised several national and international congress workshops (IASP Cancer Pain SIG, NeuPSIG, EFIC, EAPC).
Prof. Rolke is member of the IASP, EAPC, German Palliative Care Association and German Pain Association. He served as an Associate Editor of PAIN and the European Journal of Pain, and is reviewer for many other journals such as e.g. Palliativmedizin, PAIN, European Journal of Pain, Journal of Pain, Schmerz, Neurology.
Prof. Rolke is married and has three children.
Rief, Winfried, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Philipps University of Marburg, Germany. Head of the Clinic for Psychological Interventions. License for psychotherapy and supervision. Dr. Rief worked for many years in hospital settings (e.g., Roseneck Hospital for Psychosomatic Medicine, Prien a. Ch.). He is specialized in placebo- and nocebo effects, classification of chronic pain conditions, perception and coping with somatic symptoms, optimization of clinical studies and interventions. He was guest professor at Harvard Medical School, Boston (2004/2005), University of Auckland Medical School (2002), and University of California San Diego (2009/2010). Additionally, he was nominated for the expert committee of WHO/APA for the revision of the classification of mental disorders according to DSM-5, and he is co-chairing the WHO working group on chronic pain diagnoses in ICD-11. Dr. Rief is elected coordinator for grant applications to the German Research Foundation and he is spokesperson of the DFG-research unit on placebo and nocebo mechanisms. He received the Distinguished Researchers award in Behavioral Medicine in 2014.
Physical Therapist and Movement scientist. Full professor Rehabilitation Medicine; main fields are Pain Rehabilitation and Work Participation. Co-chair Pain Alliance in the Netherlands (PAiN), EFIC counsellor The Netherlands, Advisory member Fit for Work Netherlands, Advisory member EFIC Societal Impact Pain. Main research topics: Functional Capacity Evaluation, Vocational Rehabilitation, Pain Rehabilitation. Research output
Professor Tamar Pincus holds a PhD in psychology (University College London), as well as Masters Degrees in experimental research methods in psychology (UCL), and epidemiology (Cambridge University). She is a registered practicing practitioner with the Health and Care Professionals Council. Her research has embraced a variety of methodologies, including experimental, epidemiological and qualitative. The research has included investigation of cognitive biases in pain patients; the psychological predictors for poor outcome in low back pain, and the study of clinicians’ beliefs and behaviours and their effect on patients with pain, especially in reference to effective reassurance and return to work. She has been involved in several randomized controlled trials. Throughout she has collaborated closely with researchers from many disciplines, including doctors, physiotherapists, osteopaths, chiropractors and clinical psychologists, from a multitude of institutions, in the UK and internationally. She also convened the international consensus group to establish what factors and measures should be included in prospective cohorts investigating the transition from early to persistent back pain. Most recently her research has focused on delivering effective reassurance to patients in primary care, and studying the use of technology to deliver rehabilitation. Her practical work has focused on training practitioners in effective communication skills and fostering awareness of patients’ psychological needs and concerns.
Professor Gisèle Pickering (MD,PhD, DPharm) is Professor of Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology at the University Hospital of Clermont-Ferrand, France. She coordinates the Inserm CIC 1405 Clinical Research Centre and is a permanent member of the Inserm 1407 Laboratory of Fundamental and Clinical Pharmacology of Pain. Her main topics of research concern the mechanism of action of analgesics, the impact of pain on cognitive-emotional processes and pain management in older persons. She presently coordinates clinical trials in cancer patients, neuropathic pain, and in fibromyalgia, with a special focus on pain relief and quality of life. She regularly contributes to peer-reviewed publications on Pharmacology and pain, to international meetings and belongs to national and international Pain, Pharmacology and Geriatrics Societies. She is the French Councillor at the European Pain Society (EFIC). She is the author of over 150 publications and the editor of several books.
KKP, trained as a biomedical engineer, has a passion for developing pain assessment tools and to apply these in the clinic for a better understanding of the mechanisms in the central nervous system. The overall aim of his research is to understand the underlying pain mechanisms in chronic pain patients and to predict pain outcomes after treatment. In this talk, KKP will introduce how to assess central pain mechanisms in patients with knee osteoarthritis, how different subgroups of patients with knee osteoarthritis are characterized and how this can influence pain after, e.g. total knee arthroplasty and treatment with Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) and paracetamol.
KKP has published more than 40 peer-reviewed journal papers, 4 book chapters and a Pain: Clinical Update for IASP on pain mechanistic profiling using quantitative sensory testing in both healthy subjects and patients with chronic pain. KKP has an H-index of 13 (436 total citations, Scopus, November 2018) with 8 publications in PAIN. He has a position as Associate Professor at The Faculty of Medicine, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark. In addition, he holds an advisory board position at the research board within the Center for Excellence of Osteoarthritis, Aalborg Denmark. Finally, KKP is enrolled at the Talent Academy at Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark and has received the Talent Management Programme from Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark.
Madelon Peters is professor of Experimental Health Psychology at Maastricht University, where she chairs the Experimental Health Psychology research section. She studied Psychology at the University of Amsterdam, with a specialization in psychophysiology. She obtained her PhD at Maastricht University in 1992, and after having worked a few years at Utrecht University she returned to Maastricht for a tenured position. Her main interest focuses on how psychological factors influence pain perception and their association with chronic pain and disability. In addition to psychological vulnerabilities, she is interested in resilience factors, more specifically in the role of optimism. She received the prestigious VICI Innovative Research grant from the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research for her project “Optimism as a resiliency for pain, pathways and intervention”. She published more than 200 papers and presented her work on many international conferences as well as to the general public. Her latest work concentrates on the prediction and prevention of persistent pain after surgery and on novel strategies to improve the life of chronic pain patients. She developed and tested a positive psychology web-based intervention for chronic pain, which is made available for health care providers. This intervention has also been published in the form of a self-help book.
Rheumatologist and Pain Specialist
Pain Center, Cochin Hospital, 27 Rue du Faubourg St Jacques 75014 Paris, France
Professor of Clinical Therapeutics since 2008, Paris Descartes University,
Rheumatologist and Pain Physician since 1995
Head of the Rheumatological Pain Clinic, Cochin University Hospital,
Paris INSERM Research Unit 987, Paris, France since 2011.
President of the French Pain Society (SFETD)
Council member of the IASP
UNIVERSITY DEGREES:
-Master in Human Biology 1982-1985 : Neurophysiology, University Paris 5.
-Fellowship: Rheumatology, Cochin Hospital and Bichat Hospital, Paris : 1985 – 1989
-Certification in rheumatology: 1989.
-Doctor in Medical Science (MD): 1989. Paris 5 University R. Descartes.
-Assistant Professor : Rheumatology Department A, Hôpital Cochin, 1991-1995
-Specialization in Pain Medicine : 1997, Paris 6 University.
-PhD in Neurosciences : Paris 6 University 2001 : “ Morphine and inflammation : theoretical and clinical basis”.
-Master in Ethics and Philosophy, Paris 12 University 2014-1016
SCIENTIFIC PAPERS :
-140 publications in international journals
-French Coordinator of more than 30 international studies in pain, since 1991
-International coordinator of 15 studies in rheumatic pain since 1991
-Investigator for more than 150 studies in pain, rheumatology, osteoporosis, since 1991
FIELDS OF RESEARCH AND INTEREST:
-Pain in osteo-articular disorders: fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, low back pain, rheumatic inflammatory disorders
-Pharmacology of pain: Opioids, NSAIDs, and new approaches
-Innovative technology in pain management: e-devices, pain website
MEMBERSHIP OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES:
-President of the French Pain Society (SFETD) 2016
-Councilor elected of the IASP (2016)
-Member of the EFIC (European Pain Society) Scientific Committtee
-SFR (Société Française de rhumatologie), AFLAR (Association de lutte contre les Rhumatismes)
-APNET (Association Pour l’Enseignement de la Thérapeutique) : member of the French educational board in therapeutic science.
-Vice-President and founder of CEDR (Cercle d’Etudes de la Douleur en Rhumatologie), group of rheumatologists involved in pain field, section of French Society of Rheumatology (SFR)
OTHER SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES:
-Expert and member of ANSM (French Drug Agency)
-Member of several international boards on pain in rheumatology : in osteoarthritis, in fibromyalgia, in inflammatory rheumatic disorders and low back pain.
-Associate editor of “BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders”, “European J Pain”, “Pain Reports”
Kaya Peerdeman works as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Health, Medical and Neuropsychology department of Leiden University, the Netherlands. She completed her PhD dissertation ‘Harnessing placebo effects by targeting expectancies’ in early 2018 in the research group Psychoneurobiology of Health and Disease under the supervision of Prof. Andrea Evers, prof. Madelon Peters, and Dr. Antoinette van Laarhoven.
In her research she focuses on unraveling the psychophysiological mechanisms of placebo and nocebo effects on pain, itch, and fatigue. In addition, she looks at how placebo and nocebo effects can be translated to clinical practice to improve health care.
Dr. Palsson received his undergraduate training in physiotherapy from the university of Iceland in 2003 and a Master’s degree from Curtin University, Perth Australia in 2008. He then received his PhD degree in Clinical science and biomedicine from Aalborg University in 2014. In his PhD, his focus was on the sensory and motor aspects of sacroiliac joint pain.
Since completing his PhD he has broadened focus to musculoskeletal pain in general, with particular interest in the sensory manifestations of sensitivity of pain mechanisms. More specifically, how clinical signs and symptoms such as referred pain can be used to better understand the changes the sensory system undergoes in relation to an injury. Moreover, he is interested in understanding whether recovery is contingent upon normalization of such sensory changes.
Alongside his role within research and teaching at Aalborg University, Dr. Palsson works clinically with assessing and treating people suffering from complicated musculoskeletal pain conditions.
Dr. Nurmikko is a former Professor and Chair of Pain Science, University of Liverpool UK and Past Chairman of IASP’s Neuropathic Pain Special Interest Group, NeuPSIG. He currently works as a scientific advisor and research collaborator in a number of clinical studies on neuropathic pain. He has been a member of several Task Forces on the diagnosis and treatment of trigeminal neuralgia, including Co-Chair (Cranial Neuralgia Section) of the 2018 The International Classification of Headache Disorders (ICDH-3) which provides the background for his presentation.
Melanie Noel, PhD, RPsych is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Calgary and a Full Member of the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute, the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, and the Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research & Education. She directs the Alberta Children’s Pain Research Lab within the Vi Riddell Pain & Rehabilitation Centre at the Alberta Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Noel’s expertise is on children’s memories for pain and co-occurring mental health issues and pediatric chronic pain. She published conceptual models of children’s pain memory development, co-occurring PTSD and chronic pain, and fear-avoidance (72 peer-reviewed papers, H index = 21). In recognition of her contributions to advancing knowledge of the psychological aspects of children’s pain, Dr. Noel received early career awards from the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), the Canadian Pain Society, the American Pain Society, the Canadian Psychological Association, and the Society of Pediatric Psychology.
Dr. Noel co-chairs the Pain in Child Health Research Training Initiative and is the vice chair of the Scientific Program Committee (SPC) of the Canadian Pain Society. She is an advocate for the use of developmentally tailored psychological interventions for pediatric pain management and serves on committees to promote and implement evidence-based interventions within her children’s hospital and beyond. As an evidence lead on the Help Eliminate Pain in Kids and Adults team, Dr. Noel co-authored clinical practice guidelines for pain and fear management for vaccine injections. Many of these recommendations were adopted by the World Health Organization.
Position: MD, ph.d, Head of section of Clinical Neurophysiology, Department of Neurology – Oslo University Hospital
Kristian Bernhard Nilsen is Senior Consultant Clinical Neurophysiologist. His research is focused on pain mechanisms. He is currently involved in projects focusing on how sleep disturbances affect pain mechanisms, mechanisms for neuropathic pain, and studies of the reliability of human pain “surrogate” models. He has published about 50 peer-reviewed papers. In his clinical work he is involved in the clinical investigation of patients with various neurological diseases, including all kinds of painful neuropathies .
Jo Nijs holds a PhD in rehabilitation science and physiotherapy. He is professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Brussels, Belgium), physiotherapist/manual therapist at the University Hospital Brussels, and holder of a Chair on oncological physiotherapy funded by the Berekuyl Academy, the Netherlands. Jo runs the Pain in Motion international research group (www.paininmotion.be). His research and clinical interests are patients with chronic pain and pain-movement interactions, with special emphasis on the central nervous system. The primary aim of his research is improving care for patients with chronic pain. At the age of 42, he has (co-)authored >200 peer reviewed publications, obtained €8 million grant income, supervised 12 PhD projects to completion (excluding 20 ongoing PhD projects) and served more than 240 times as an invited speaker at national and international meetings in 25 different countries (including 29 keynotes). He trained 2,5k clinicians in 77 courses held in 11 different countries spread over 4 continents. His work has been cited >4200 times (h-index: 38), with 25 citations per article (ISI Web of Knowledge). Jo is ranked 1st in the world among central nervous system sensitization researchers, 4th in the world among chronic pain researchers (1st in Europe), 2nd in the world among chronic fatigue syndrome researchers, and 6th among whiplash injury researchers (expertscape.com).
Dr. Müller is a medical doctor and holds a PhD in epidemiology jointly awarded by the Swiss School of Public Health and University of Bern, Switzerland. For her thesis on “Clinical application of quantitative sensory tests to assess altered central pain processing in chronic pain patients” she received a scholarship of the Swiss National Science Foundation. In her PhD training she focused on clinical research methodology and biostatistics and developed methodological skills in advanced statistical methods such as prognostic modelling including trajectories, multiple imputation and causal modelling. As a psychiatrist she has broad clinical experience in emotional and motivational aspects of pain management. She currently works as senior clinician at the service of addiction medicine of the University Hospital of Psychiatry in Geneva. She is particularly interested in the bidirectional relationship of chronic pain and opioid dependency and treats in this capacity opioid-dependent patients who develop a pain disorder as well as chronic pain patients developing opioid-dependency as a result of abuse of pain medication.
Lorimer is a physiotherapist and pain scientist. He has published over 300 papers and five books. His public education and outreach articles and videos have had over 5 million reads/views. He leads an interdisciplinary research team that undertakes human systems research aimed at (i) understanding pain better, and (ii) developing better strategies to prevent and treat persistent pain. He has a long standing interest in using contemporary and innovative methods to ‘translate’ contemporary pain science into concepts and language that clinicians and patients can both understand and then integrate into their own decision making. His innovative experimental approaches have been widely recognised, for example by IASP’s inaugural clinical science prize and the Australian government’s most prestigious prize for innovation and potential transformation in medical or health research. His ongoing commitment to education, translation and implementation is exemplified by innovative community targeted strategies such as the Pain Revolution Rural Outreach Tour and Local Pain Educators program. This work has also been widely recognised, for example by the American Pain Society’s Prize for Public Service. His contribution to the pain field has been recognised by the University of South Australia’s first Doctor of Science award, honorary fellowship of the Australian Faculty of Pain Medicine, Australia & New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, honoured membership of the Australian Physiotherapy Association – its highest honour – and awards from government or community groups in 14 countries.
Dr. Mekhail is a full professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine; he is also the Director of Evidence-Based Pain Medicine Research and Education in the Department of Pain Management. An accomplished author, Dr. Mekhail has published more than 155 original articles. In addition, he has instructed at more than 202 CME lectures and 72 lectures as a visiting professor. He has served in leadership positions of professional organizations; as a member of the Board of Directors and Chair of the examination board of the World Institute of Pain, a member of the American Society of Regional Anesthesia and Pain Medicine Research Committee, as well as a member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists Pain Committee. Dr. Mekhail serves as the Director and Chairman of the Department of Pain Management at Cleveland Clinic 1997-2010.
In 2010, Dr. Mekhail was awarded the Carl E. Wasmuth M.D. Endowed Chair in Anesthesiology, and recognized by the Ohio Society of Interventional Pain Physicians as the 1st recipient of its achievement award. He was also recognized by the West Virginia Society of Interventional Pain Physicians in 2011 and the New York and New Jersey Interventional Pain Physicians in 2016.
Dr. Mekhail earned several degrees at the University of Ain Shams School of Medicine, Cairo, Egypt; Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery with Honors, Master of Science (Anatomy) and Doctor of Philosophy. His internship in internal medicine, residency in anesthesiology, and Fellowship in Pain Management/Neuroanesthesia were completed at the Cleveland Clinic.
Scientific career
Consultant and Head of Pain Unit, Dept. of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care; Jena University Hospital. Head of Palliative CareDepartment (2009); Head of Outpatient Pain Clinic (2013)
2012 Adjunct professor
2005 Post-doctoral qualification (Habilitation)
1994 Doctoral thesis
1989-1994 Residency at University Hospital Steglitz (now University Hospital Benjamin Franklin), Dept. of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care
1982-1988 Medical School, Free University of Berlin
Professional memberships (selection)
• Working Group International Pain Registry, International Society for the Study of Pain
• Special Interest group Acute Pain, International Society for the Study of Pain
• German Pain Society, Board member
Main clinical experience
• Management of acute pain in adults and children
• Management of chronic pain including multimodal pain management programs
• Palliative care and symptom control
• Regional anesthesia
Selection of 5 peer reviewed publications
• Zaslansky R, Meissner W, Chapman D. Pain after orthopaedic surgery: differences in patient reported outcomes in the USA versus internationally. An observational study from the PAIN OUT dataset. BJA 2018 doi: 10.1016/j.bja.2017.11.109
• Meissner W, Komann M, Erlenwein J, Stamer U, Scherag A. The Quality of Postoperative Pain Therapy in German Hospitals. Dtsch Arztebl Int 2017;114: 161-7 Baumbach P, Götz T, Günther A, Weiss T, Meissner W. Somatosensory Functions in Survivors of Critical Illness. Crit Care Med 2017;45:e567-e574
• Zaslansky R, Rothaug J, Chapman CR, Bäckström R, Brill S, Fletcher D, Fodor L, Gordon DB, Komann M, Konrad C, Leykin Y, Pogatzki-Zahn E, Puig MM, Rawal N, Ullrich K, Volk T, Meissner W. PAIN OUT: the making of an international acute pain registry. Eur J Pain 2015;19:490-502
• Schwenkglenks M, Gerbershagen HJ, Taylor RS, Pogatzki-Zahn E, Komann M, Rothaug J, Volk T, Yahiaoui-Doktor M, Zaslansky R, Brill S, Ullrich K, Gordon DB, Meissner W. Correlates of satisfaction with pain treatment in the acute postoperative period: results fromthe international PAIN OUT registry. PAIN 2014;155:1401-11
• Gerbershagen HJ, Aduckathil S, van Wijck AJM, Peelen LM, Kalkman CJ, Meissner W. Pain Intensity on the First Day after Surgery. Anesthesiology, 2013;118: 934-44
Grants
• 2018 – 2020: Head Coordinator: PROMPT – Patient reported outcome measures to improve the management of acute and chronic pain. IMI (Innovative Medicine Initiative) der EU.
• 2017 – 2019: Head Coordinator: SAVOIR – Evaluierung der SAPV-Richtlinie: Outcomes, Interaktionen, Regionale Unterschiede. Innovationsfonds beim Gemeinsamen Bundesausschuß
• 2016-2018: PI: Does multimodal pain treatment affect neurotransmitter turnover and functional connectivity in the brain of patients with chronic pain?. DFG-Sachbeihilfe
• 2010 – 2015: Coordinator/PI of NeuroPAIN (Chronic pain and neurologic consequences in sepsis survivors), Center for Sepsis Control and Care, Jena University Hospital
2009 – 2012: Coordinator/PI of PAIN OUT (Improvement in Postoperative PAIN OUTcome), European Commission, FP7-HEALTH-2007-B 223590
• 2007 – ongoing: Coordinator/PI of QUIPS (Quality improvement in postoperative pain management), German Society of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care
• 2003 – 2006: Coordinator/PI of “Benchmarking in postoperative Pain Management”, German Ministry of Health, AZ 217-43794-6/3
Main research topics
Epidemiology and quality improvement in pain medicine
Cortical plasticity
Mira Meeus holds a PhD in rehabilitation science and physiotherapy. She is full-time appointed as professor at the Departments of Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy at the University of Antwerp and Ghent University (Belgium). She is co-founder of the International research group Pain in Motion (www.paininmotion.be) and is internationally recognized for her expertise in chronic pain and central sensitization. She has published widely in the topic of chronic pain and rehabilitation (>140 A1 artciles, H-index 31, supervised 6 finished PhD in the field of central sensitization and 12 ongoing PhD projects). She is frequently asked for invited lectures and courses at both national and international conferences and workshops. Her work is cited > 2500 times and she is ranked 2nd place in the world among central sensitization researchers (expertscape.com).
Megan McPhee is a young researcher from Queensland, Australia, currently working on her PhD at the Center for Neuroplasticity and Pain (CNAP), SMI®, at Aalborg University in Denmark. She holds a Bachelor of Physiotherapy (Hons) from the University of Queensland, and an MSc Med in Pain Management from the University of Sydney. In the past, she has worked on understanding the perceived complexity of exercises for low back pain, and finding the best management approaches for acute musculoskeletal pain in the emergency department. Her current research focusses on understanding the relationship between mechanisms of pain inhibition and facilitation, and the experience of low back pain over time, in both experimental models and clinical conditions. Beyond this, she has a broader interest in perception and perceptual learning, along with the interplay between attention, affect, expectation, movement and pain. At present, she has co-authored 11 peer-reviewed articles, 7 conference abstracts, 2 opinion pieces and a book chapter. She is highly motivated to contribute to the pain research community and is thrilled to have the opportunity to share her PhD work at the 2019 EFIC Congress.
C. Meghan McMurtry completed her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS, Canada and her psychology residency at Brown University in Providence, RI, United States in 2010. She is an Associate Professor in the CPA-accredited Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology program at the University of Guelph in Guelph, ON, Canada where she is director of the Pediatric Pain, Health, and Communication Lab. Dr. McMurtry is a Clinical and Health Psychologist with the Pediatric Chronic Pain Program at McMaster Children’s Hospital. She is an Adjunct Research Professor in Paediatrics at Western University and an Associate Scientist at the Children’s Health Research Institute. Dr. McMurtry’s research and clinical interests in child health psychology focus on acute and chronic pain, medical procedure-related fear, as well as communication and family influences in these contexts. Her research has been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Team for Research with Adolescents and Children in Palliation and Grief, Genome Canada, and the Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation.
Anna Marcuzzi is a researcher and physiotherapist with an interest in the management of musculoskeletal pain. She completed her PhD at Macquarie University (Sydney) in 2017 investigating somatosensory profiles associated with the development of chronic low back pain. Since 2017, she has worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the Pain Management Research Institute, University of Sydney. She is using a range of quantitative sensory tests to better understand the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying chronic pain and treatment responses. Her research interests include the assessment of pain sensitization and its impact on clinical outcomes, prognostic factors and the early management of back pain.
Adriaan earned both an undergraduate as well as a master’s degree in physiotherapy from the University of Stellenbosch in Cape Town, South Africa. He is an adjunct faculty member at St. Ambrose University and the University of Nevada Las Vegas, teaching pain science. Adriaan has taught throughout the US and internationally for 20 years at numerous national and international manual therapy, pain science and medical conferences. He is a Certified Spinal Manual Therapist, Certified Pain Specialist and has authored and co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed articles related to spinal disorders and pain science. Adriaan completed his Ph.D. on pain neuroscience education and is the Director of the Therapeutic Neuroscience Research Group – an independent collaborative initiative studying pain neuroscience. Adriaan is the Program Director of the Therapeutic Pain Specialist and Pain Science Fellowship post-graduate program for Evidence in Motion.
Marco Loggia is a neuroscientist with a broad background in psychophysical and brain imaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI; including Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) fMRI and Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL)), and integrated Positron Emission Tomography / Magnetic Resonance (PET/MR) imaging. His main research interests focus on the study of pain, with particular emphasis on chronic pain disorders. He is currently the PI of three NIH RO1 projects and co-project leader of a Program Project Grant, all aimed at evaluating brain alterations in chronic pain patients (chronic low back pain, osteoarthritis, HIV neuropathic pain and migraine) using integrated PET/MR imaging.
In 2008 Marco Loggia was awarded a Ph.D. In Neurological Sciences by McGill University in Montreal, QC (Canada). During his graduate studies he had the opportunity to work at the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain (formerly McGill Centre for Research on Pain), under the mentorship of its first director, Prof. M. Catherine Bushnell, a pioneer in the field of human pain imaging. Between 2008 and 2013, he held the position of Research Fellow at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. As of 2013 Marco Loggia is faculty at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Marco Loggia is a recipient of the 2013 Early Career Award from the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and the 2016 IASP Ulf Lindblom Young Investigator Award for Clinical Science.
Cédric Lenoir is currently post-doc research assistant in the Pain Research Group headed by Prof André Mouraux in the Institute of Neuroscience at Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Brussels. His work aims investigating the changes in brain function related to chronic pain and whether neurophysiological measures could predict the development of post-operative chronic pain in patients. After a clinical practice in a pain clinic department as a physiotherapy, he obtained his PhD in the Pain Research Group headed by Prof. André Mouraux in the Institute of Neuroscience at UCLouvain Brussels. During his PhD, his work focused, in humans, on the characterization of the central processing of nociceptive somatosensory inputs by combining non-invasive neuromodulation such as high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and functional neuroimaging techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). His works highlighted the differential involvement of the primary somatosensory cortex in vibrotaction and nociception. He also demonstrated the predominant role of the operculo-insular cortex in the detection of painful thermonociceptive somatosensory stimuli using deep rTMS of the operculo-insular cortex in healthy volunteers. In parallel, he conducted several studies on the central and peripheral mechanisms involved in nociception during sensitization in particular in the area of secondary hyperalgesia induced by high frequency stimulation of the skin in humans.
Patricia Lavand’homme, Professor of Anaesthesiology, is currently working in St Luc Hospital, University Catholic of Louvain, Brussels, Belgium. She is the director of the Acute Postoperative Pain service. She is dedicated to Orthopedic Anaesthesia, Obstetric Anaesthesia and Pain Clinic. She has a PhD degree in Medical Science.
Patricia did a visiting Scholarship Program at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston Salem, North Carolina, USA (Pain Mechanisms Laboratory, Pr Eisenach).
She also has served as Chairperson of the Scientic Subcommittee “Acute and Chronic Pain” in the European Society of Anesthesiologists – ESA. She is currently an Associated Editor of the European journal of Anesthesiology and a member of the PROSPECT working group. Patricia also is part of the IASP Task Force working with WHO on Pain Classification for ICD-11 (working on chronic postsurgical and posttraumatic pain).
Dr. Miriam Kunz was born near Duesseldorf, Germany in 1977. She studied Psychology in Berlin (1997 – 2002) and received her PhD from the University of Bamberg (2006). She conducted her postdoctoral research at the University of Montreal (Prof. Pierre Rainville) and the University of Bamberg (Prof. Lautenbacher). In 2015 she moved to the Netherlands to start a Tenure Track position at the University of Groningen. In 2019 she moved to Augsburg (Germany) to start as a full professor for Medical Psychology and Sociology at the University of Augsburg. She is an expert in the field of facial expression of pain and in the field of pain in patients with dementia, where her research bridges from experimental basic research to clinical applications.
Eva Kosek, MD, PhD is holding a position as full Professor in Clinical Pain Research at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. She received her medical degree from the Uppsala University in 1986 and her PhD from the Karolinska Institute in 1996. She is a specialist in rehabilitation medicine since 2001 and pain relief since 2004 and has been clinically active for the most part of her professional carrier. Dr. Kosek’s research focuses on pathophysiological mechanisms in chronic musculoskeletal pain, with special reference to central pain modulation and neuroinflammation in fibromyalgia, chronic low back pain, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. The research is hypothesis driven and the research group uses a wide variety of techniques such as genetics, analysis of inflammatory substances in cerebrospinal fluid and blood, quantitative sensory testing and imaging (functional magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography).
Dr. Kosek was an elected Councilor of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) 2012-18 and chairs the IASP Terminology Task Force. She is a member of several professional associations such as Scandinavian Association for the Study of Pain (SASP), the Swedish Medical Association and the Swedish Pain Society. Dr. Kosek is a reviewer for several scientific journals and has published many articles, book chapters and abstracts. She has lectured at conferences and symposia worldwide.
Gineke Koopmans-Klein is Medical Manager Pain and Respiratory for Mundipharma Pharmaceuticals BV in the Netherlands. She obtained her Master degree in Biochemistry in 2001. From 2015 to 2019 she was a PhD-student at the Center for Pain Medicine of the Erasmus MC in the Netherlands under the supervision of Prof Dr. F.J.P.M. Huygen and Dr. M. Dirckx. Her main area of research is opioid induced constipation, with a focus on the efficacy opioid antagonists for the treatment of opioid induced constipation in patients. Within this field, her particular focus is on gathering real world evidence and observational studies especially in patients not responding to laxative treatment. Further, she now collaborates in investigating non-opioid treatment options in the emergency medical services. Moreover, she specialized in Value Based Health Care and she has become member of the Board Committee Patient and Science of the Association Innovative Medicines in the Netherlands.
Dr Pall Karlsson is Assistant Professor at the Danish Pain Research Centre at Aarhus University Hospital and Aarhus University in Denmark, where he has been employed since 2009. Dr Karlsson holds a bachelor degree in molecular biology from the University of Iceland, a master‘s degree in molecular biology from Aarhus University and a PhD from the Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University from 2013. He is responsible for the skin biopsy laboratory at Aarhus University and Aarhus University Hospital, overseeing both clinical and research-related skin biopsies. His research is focused on understanding why some, but not all, patients with diabetes develop neuropathic pain and to identify novel biomarkers of neuropathic pain. Dr Karlsson has published over 20 research papers and has a fruitful ongoing international collaboration in both Europe and the United States, and is part of the International Diabetic Neuropathy Consortium (IDNC). Additionally, Dr Karlsson a member of the national advisory forum of the Danish Diabetes Academy, is an editorial board member of the Journal of the Peripheral Nervous System and has given presentations at both the World Congress on Pain held by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and the International Congress on Neuropathic Pain, held by the Neuropathic Pain Special Interest Group (NeuPSIG).
Dr Abbie Jordan is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Bath, UK and a member of the Bath Centre for Pain Research, UK. Dr Jordan’s work focuses on a number of key areas including parenting in the context of paediatric chronic pain and assessment of paediatric pain. Additionally, Dr Jordan is especially interested in exploring topics around diagnostic uncertainty and social context with regards to pain in children, young people and their families.
Stian Jessen (MPhilEd) received his Master of Philosophy in Education from the Faculty of Educational Science, University of Oslo (Norway) studying the design and use of ICT for educational purposes.
Stian currently works at the Center for Shared Decision Making And Collaborative Care Research at Oslo University Hospital (Norway), which through more than 15 years have researched, developed, and implemented multiple mHealth/eHealth tools. He is also enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo (Norway), for his Ph.D studies, which as has two focal areas.
1, the use of gamification/ gameful design in a mHealth self-support tools for people living with chronic illnesses focusing on the users own personal strengths.
2. How this mHealth tool, and particularly the gameful aspects can be Co-designed (with future users) to enhance user engagement, motivation and intervention effectiveness.
Kelly Ickmans is part time Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) appointed at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Brussels, Belgium) and part time Assistant Professor (ZAP) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She is also an attending physiotherapist at the University Hospital Brussels (Brussels, Belgium) where she treats adults and children with chronic pain. Dr. Ickmans holds a PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences and Physiotherapy and is co-chair of the international Pain in Motion research group (www.paininmotion.be) where she leads the line of research on pediatric pain (PiMkids). The group is internationally recognized for its work on hyperexcitability of the central nervous system (central sensitization) and Pain Neuroscience Education (PNE) in various chronic pain disorders.
Dr. Ickmans has (co-)authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications in international journals, including several papers in high impact journals. She has furthermore published 4 chapters in (inter)national handbooks, served several times as an invited speaker at national and international meetings in 8 different countries, gave several single and 2 day post-academic and refresher courses in different countries over the world, and is currently (co-)supervisor of 9 PhD projects.
Frank Huygen is working as an Anaesthesiologist pain specialist in the University Hospital “Erasmus Medical Centre” in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Since 2009 he is appointed as full Professor in Anaesthesiology Especially Pain Medicine at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is director of the centre of pain medicine. This centre is a multidisciplinary pain clinic specialised in acute, chronic benign and oncologic pain and palliative care (including the treatment of congenital and acquired spasticity with intrathecal Baclofen).
Frank Huygen is principal investigator of the Academic Centre of Pain Medicine (Erasmusmc ACE). He is especially interested in the Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. In 2004, he received a PhD on writing a thesis titled “Neuroimmune alterations in the Complex Regional Pain Syndrome”. He is responsible for and/or participating in several research lines focussing especially on CRPS and neuromodulation therapies. He published > 150 peer reviewed articles.
He is involved in the education of medical students at Erasmusmc and responsible for the training of anaesthesia residents and anaesthesia fellows in pain medicine. He is responsible for the organisation of an education block on Neuromodulation in the master Technical Medicine at the Technical University in Delft.
He is member of the editorial board of the journal “Painpractice”.
He is chairman of the scientific committee of the European Pain Federation world congress in 2019 in Valencia.
He is member of the scientific committee of the IASP world congress in 2020 in Amsterdam
He is chairman of the section Benelux of the WorId Institute of Pain.
Frank Huygen is graduated as fellow of interventional pain practice in the world Institute of Pain in 2008. In 2011 he received the IASP research international collaboration grant. In January 2016, Frank Huygen received an honorary Fellowship in the Faculty of Pain Medicine in the College Anaesthetists of Ireland. Frank Huygen is appointed as member of the central disciplinary tribunal for healthcare in The Hague in January 2013.
Dr. Nathan Hutting is currently working as a researcher at the HAN University of Applied Sciences, research group Occupation & Health in The Netherlands. Nathan is also working as a physiotherapist and manual therapist in a private practice and is a board member of the Dutch Association for Manual Therapy and the Member Organisation delegate of the Netherlands in the International Federation of Orthopaedic Manipulative Physical Therapists (IFOMPT). His PhD thesis (2015) entitled “Effectiveness of a self-management program for employees with complaints of the arm, neck, and/or shoulder” consisted of seven peer-reviewed publications. In the past years, Nathan was also involved in several projects about occupation and health and he investigated to what extent physiotherapists integrate occupational factors within their treatment of patients with musculoskeletal disorders. His current research topics include occupation and health, (work related) musculoskeletal disorders, the integration of occupational factors within physiotherapy practice, self-management and healthy living. Nathan has given many (inter)national presentations and chaired focused symposia at the IFOMPT conference in 2016 and the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WVPT) congresses in 2017 and 2019.
Andrea Houghton received her Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham in the UK studying the pharmacology of withdrawal reflexes using peripheral nerve recordings. After her PhD she moved to Galveston, Texas in the USA to work with Dr.s Karin Westlund-High and Bill Willis where she studied the pharmacology of pain processing in rodents and primates using electrophysiology and behavior. She then returned to the UK completing a postdoc at the University of Bristol with Dr Max Headley she took a position with Organon Laboratories in Scotland where she worked for 12 years supporting the research of novel analgesics. Andrea is currently an Executive Director at the Merck & Co Inc. Her first role at Merck was Executive Director Pain & Migraine where she was responsible for managing Merck’s Pain & Migraine portfolio. Her current role is leading the Pharmacology Dept at West Point supporting both Neuroscience and Infectious Disease therapy areas. She continues to work on preclinical and clinical projects pursuing the identification of novel analgesics, including Nav1.7 inhibitors. She has published more than 40 peer reviewed papers during her career worked on programs at Organon and Merck resulting in 8 compounds entering clinical development to treat pain and/or migraine.
Winfried Häuser is specialist of general internal medicine, psychosomatic medicine and pain medicine. He is consultant for gastroenterology, hepatology and pain/palliative care medicine, department of Internal Medicine I and head of the function psychosomatic medicine, academic hospital Saarbrücken, Germany. He is consultant of the ambulatory pain medicine and mental health care center Saarbrücken and offers special consultant hours for patients with fibromyalgia and chronic abdominal pain. He is adjunct professor for psychosomatic medicine at the Technical University Munich, Germany. His areas of research are psychosomatic aspects of bowel diseases, functional somatic syndromes (fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic pelvic pain) and evidence-based medicine and health care research. He is co-editor of the Cochrane Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care Group. He is the head of the steering committee of the German guidelines on fibromyalgia and opioids in chronic non-cancer pain and member of the steering group of the EULAR recommendations on the management of fibromyalgia. He is the head of the EFIC task force for a position paper on cannabis-based medicines for chronic pain. He has published more than 200 papers on chronic pain conditions (celiac disease; chronic inflammatory bowel diseases; fibromyalgia; irritable bowel syndrome) in peer-reviewed journals including systematic reviews on pharmacological, psychological, physical and complementary/alternative therapies for chronic pain conditions.
Dr. Lauren Harrison is a post-doctoral fellow in pediatric chronic pain at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. As a fellow, she works clinically within the Pediatric Pain Management Clinic at Stanford Children’s Hospital. She also has a research appointment and works within the Biobehavioral Pediatric Pain Lab, under the mentorship of Dr. Laura Simons. Dr. Harrison graduated from Eastern Michigan University in August 2018 with her PhD in Clinical Psychology, with a concentration on pediatric chronic illness populations. During her graduate education, she completed several clinical training experiences with pediatric chronic illness and pain populations, including a 1-year clinical practicum at Shriner’s Burn Hospital for Children in Galveston, TX, where she worked as part of an interdisciplinary team to conduct psychosocial evaluations and pain assessments and to provide psychological intervention during procedures and physical/occupational therapy appointments. She also completed a two-year practicum at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, working within medical specialty clinics, as well as a rotation on an inpatient consultation and liaison service. She completed her clinical doctoral internship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine/Kennedy Krieger Institute working on a pediatric inpatient rehabilitation unit with children and adolescents with spinal cord injuries, functional neurological disorders, post-orthopedic surgery, brain injury, functional recovery following surgery or medical treatment. To date, her research has focused on parent and family functioning in pediatric chronic pain populations, with a special focus on effective assessment and treatment of parent and family variables within pediatric chronic pain populations
Dr Erin Greaves, Ph.D (Principal Investigator and Medical Research Council Career Development Award Fellow, MRC Centre for Reproductive Health University of Edinburgh, UK)
My research focuses on the pathophysiology of endometriosis with a specific emphasis on how lesions generate pain and the role of macrophages in the disorder. To investigate this complex disorder I generated a unique mouse model of endometriosis that demonstrates robust changes in sensory behavior and associated molecular changes in the CNS.
I completed my PhD (2009) at the University of Leeds and then moved to the MRC Human Reproductive Sciences Unit at the University of Edinburgh to carry out my postdoctoral studies on endometrial function and dysfunction. During this time I became interested in endometriosis and had the opportunity to develop a new mouse model. In 2014 I was awarded a prestigious Medical Research Council Career Development Award to investigate the role of macrophages in generating endometriosis-associated pain. At the same time I was appointed as Principal Investigator at the MRC Centre for Reproductive Health (University of Edinburgh). In 2017 I was awarded the David Healy Award for basic science at the 13th World Congress of Endometriosis. I have delivered 19 invited lectures and seminars at National and International conferences and academic Institutions.
Liesbet Goubert is Full Professor in the Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology at Ghent University, Belgium (http://www.ghplab.ugent.be). She is interested in psychosocial risk factors for the development of chronic (pediatric) pain and in the interpersonal dynamics of (chronic) pain and chronic illness. More recently, she became very interested in the study of psychosocial resilience mechanisms that may account for the sustainment of adaptive functioning and well-being in the presence of pain.
She has published 145 peer-reviewed articles and 15 book chapters, which have 7230 citations (her h-index is 43). Her scholarly contributions have been recognized with several scientific awards, including the IASP-SIG Early Career Award in Pediatric Pain, the EFIC Grünenthal Grant Award and the Prize “Institut Belge de la Douleur-UPSA-Belgisch Pijninstituut”. In 2017, she received the British Pain Society Medal in recognition for her outstanding contributions to the clinical science of pain.
She is a Council member of the IASP Special Interest Group on Pain in Childhood (2018 – 2023) and a member of the IASP/EFIC Global Year 2019 taskforce “Pain in the most vulnerable”. She has been the Scientific Chair of the 11th International Symposium on Pediatric Pain (2017, Malaysia) and the European Pediatric Psychology Conference (2018, Belgium). At the national level, she is a member of the scientific committee of the Belgian Pain Society and a member of the workforce Chronic Pain in Childhood of the Belgian Paediatric Pain Association.
Luda Diatchenko, MD, PhD is a Canada Excellence Research Chair in Human Pain Genetics, Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Anesthesia, and Faculty of Dentistry, at McGill University, Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain. She earned her MD and PhD in the field of Molecular Biology from the Russian State Medical University. Dr. Diatchenko started her career in industry, she was a Leader of the RNA Expression Group at Clontech, Inc., and subsequently, Director of Gene Discovery at Attagene, Inc. During this time, Dr. Diatchenko was actively involved in the development of several widely-used and widely-cited molecular tools for the analysis of gene expression and regulation. Dr. Diatchenko’s academic career started at 2000 in the Center for Neurosensory Disorders at the University of North Carolina. Her research since then is focused on determining the cellular and molecular biological mechanisms by which functional genetic variations impact human pain perception and risk of development of chronic pain conditions, enabling new approaches to identify new drug targets, treatment responses to analgesics, and diagnostic. Multiple collaborative activities allow the Diatchenko group to take basic genetic findings all the way from human association studies, through molecular and cellular mechanisms, to animal models, and ultimately to human clinical trials. In total, Dr. Diatchenko have authored or co-authored over 120 peer-reviewed research papers in journals, 10 book chapters, and edited a book in human pain genetics. She is a member and an active officer of several national and international scientific societies, including the International Association for the Study of Pain and the American Pain Society.
Dr Cruccu obtained his degree in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Genoa, Italy, in July 1975 and specialized in Neurology at the Sapienza University of Rome in July 1979.
Former Head of the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry (2012-2018), he currently holds the following positions at the Sapienza University of Rome:
– Full Professor of Neurology at the Department of Human Neuroscience
– Chairman of the Neurology teaching course for the degree in Medicine
– Chief of the Clinical Neurophysiology Division and associated Neuropathic Pain Centre
Dr Cruccu’s special research interests include the neurophysiology of pain and the human trigeminal system. As an 18 year old student he entered the neurophysiology laboratory to work on the rabbit limbic system at the Institute of Physiology at Genoa University. After graduation he attended the neurophysiology laboratory working on the cat peripheral nerve and spinal cord at the Neurological Institute of Sapienza University of Rome. Winner of a NATO senior fellowship in 1984-85 he attended the Pain Relief Foundation in Liverpool, undertaking intraoperative intracranial recordings in patients with trigeminal neuralgia. In recent years he has predominantly dedicated to nociceptive reflexes and cortical evoked potentials after laser stimuli in patients with trigeminal neuralgia, postherpetic neuralgia, and diabetic neuropathy. His latest efforts focused on gathering European scientists to produce European guidelines on neuropathic pain.
Dr Cruccu has written several book chapters and more than 250 articles in ISI-ranked international journals, which have received more than 13,000 citations for an H index of 55 (Scopus).
Scientific Societies:
– European Academy of Neurology (EAN): current Co-Chair of the Scientific Panel Pain
– European Federation of Neurological Societies (EFNS): former Secretary General
– Brain Stem Society (BSS): former President
– Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology (SINC): former President
Geert Crombez, Ph.D., is Professor of Health psychology in the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the Ghent University, Belgium. He has published over 300 articles in internationally peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. His contributions have been recognized by early career award,s and he has received various research grants. He is/was member of the editorial board of various international journals (Pain, European Journal of Pain, PAINReports, Journal of Pain, Psychology & Health, Health Psychology Review). He is actively involved in experimental and applied research in health psychology (i.e. pain, assessment and eHealth). Currently, he is coordinating the research on the psychology of pain and on eHealth. Used theoretical models and constructs are transdiagnostic, and, therefore, easily applicable to different health or clinical problems. Foundational to his research is a motivational perspective that is built around the powers of goals and self-regulation. Such perspective allows different levels of analysis (neuroscientific, cognitive, behavioral and interpersonal), and is applicable to a wide range of health-related problems (healthy life style, treatment adherence, chronic illnesses). A further advantage is its focus upon clinically relevant outcomes (e.g. the interference of somatic problems and health-related goals with valued life activities), and its translational nature.
He focuses upon the development of innovative experimental paradigms, and the development of integrative models of symptom perception, disability and suffering. He also provides and stimulates critical and reflective analyses of theoretical concepts (e.g. somatization, acceptance”), of relevance of empirical data (e.g. statistical vs clinical significance), and the practice of science (study reporting and development of study protocols).
Specialist in Pain Medicine and specialist in Anesthesia. Grandparent of European Diploma in Pain Medicine
Director of Institute of Pain Medicine, at Tel Aviv Medical Center
Past- President of Israel Pain association and Councilor for Israel at European Pain Federation.
Member of the Board of EDPM.
Research interests: Cannabinoids for pain management, Invasive procedure for pain, Psychological aspects of chronic pain patient.
Ole Kæseler Andersen received the M.Sc. degree in biomedical engineering in 1992, and the Ph.D. degree in 1996 from Aalborg University, Denmark. He defended his Dr. Scient. thesis (doctoral degree in natural sciences) in 2007 on the nature and organization of the withdrawal reflex submitted to Aalborg University. He is currently Professor in biomedical engineering at Department of Health Science and Technology, Faculty of Medicine, Aalborg University, Denmark. He is affiliated to Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction (SMI®). His research interests include spinal nociception in human models, technologies for thermal and electrical stimulation targeting nociceptive afferents, biomarkers for spinal nociception, and sensory-motor interaction related to the withdrawal reflex.
Praveen Anand is Professor of Clinical Neurology and Head, Centre for Clinical Translation, at Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London.
Professor Praveen Anand’s medical education was at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and post-graduate training was at the Hammersmith Hospital and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London.
His research focuses on pathophysiological and molecular mechanisms in the human sensory neuropathies and chronic pain syndromes. Collaborations with pharmaceutical companies and clinical colleagues are directed to projects which bridge the gap between pre-clinical developments and their successful clinical applications. The translational approach has guided the recent success of 3 novel drugs from the laboratory to Phase II trials for chronic neuropathic pain, and one for chronic itch. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles in journals including Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Genetics, Science and The Lancet.
Since graduating in 1999 from the University of Valencia , Dr. Gómez has focused his work towards applied clinical research of highly prevalence gynecological pathologies such as polycystic ovary syndrome, myomas and, more recently, endometriosis. During his Postdoctoral stays at Columbia University , and Mount Siani School of Medicine he specialized in transferring his research from the lab bench to its subsequent application in human clinical therapies. For such purposes Dr. Gómez develops animal models that replicate the gynecological diseases of interest to try to determine which molecular mechanisms are involved in their appearance. Subsequently, he rehearses on these animal models, compounds capable of altering the mechanisms responsible for the disease and constitute effective treatments thereof. In the absence of toxic effects, the next step involves testing in humans, through pilot studies, the effectiveness of the compounds of interest and their final implantation in the cynics in case of success. In this regard his team research published proof of concept (Reproduction 2011) and preclinical studies (Fertil Steril 2011) in humans showing the efficacy of dopamine agonists to treat endometriosis without side effects or compromising fertility. Currently, Dr. Gómez is focused on optimizing animals models to more physiologically reflect the chronic pelvic associated with endometriosis. The goal is to use such refined models as a platform to boost the transferability of research with newly developed analgesic drugs from the bench to the clinic
Luis Garcia-Larrea (Madrid, 1956) obtained his MD and PhD degrees, and the specialisation in Clinical Neurophysiology from the University of Barcelona (Spain). He is currently Research Director at the INSERM (National Agency for Medical Research, France), Head of the Inserm / University research Lab “Central Integration of Pain in Humans” (NeuroPain) at the Centre for Neuroscience of Lyon, and member of the Pain Center at the Lyon Neurological Hospital. His main research interests are the cortical processing of somatic sensations, the diagnosis and prediction of neuropathic pain, and its therapy using cortical neurostimulation. He is author of more than 180 scientific publications and 50 didactic papers on these topics, and Editor of the Book “Pain in the Conscious Brain” (IASP–Wolters-Kluver 2016). He served as President of the French (2008-10) and European (2010-2015) Societies of Clinical Neurophysiology, is currenly Deputy Director of the Human Biology Department of Lyon Claude Bernard University (2013- ), and Editor-in-Chief of The European Journal of Pain (2016 – ). He serves as member of the European Task Forces for the Assessment of neuropathic pain and neurostimulation techniques (European Federation of Neurology – EFNS). He has received awards from the Institut de France (Neuroscience Prize 2009; Pain research prize 2015), the French Pain Society (Translational Research Award 2013) and the IASP (Ronald Melzack Award 2012).
Ms. Galve Villa is currently completing her PhD at the Center for Neuroplasticity and Pain (CNAP), SMI®, Dept. of Health Science and Technology, Faculty of Medicine,
Aalborg University (Denmark). Her research investigates the use of digital mapping technology, and explores novel pain metrics to track, qualify and quantify changes of pain over time. Her research aims to capture, describe and evaluate the clinical picture of painful conditions using modern and accessible technology (e-health).
Ms. Galve Villa completed her Physiotherapy degree in her native Spain, followed by an MSc in Neuromusculoskeletal Physiotherapy in Ireland. She has an extensive background with more than 10 years’ experience in different clinical settings in Spain, Ireland and Denmark. She has developed a special interest in the management of persistent pain and Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS).
In the future she hopes to continue developing and implementing e-health and other digital solutions to bridge the gap between researchers, the industry and the individual.
Cesar Fernández-de-las-Peñas. PT, PhD, Dr.Med.Sci is Full Professor of Physiotherapy at the Department Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Rehabilitation, and Physical Medicine, University Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid (Spain) where he is the head division of a clinical research group focused on pain neurosciences. He conducted his first PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the Centre for Sensory Motor Interaction, Aalborg University (Denmark) and his second PhD in Physical Therapy at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos. His research activities are concentrated on biomedical sciences within neuroscience by integrating physical manual therapy and exercise. The specific research areas are pain mechanisms, assessment of pain in volunteers and chronic pain patients and therapeutic options with physical therapy approaches. He has published 400 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals. Most papers are concentrated on pain neurosciences focusing on upper quadrant pain syndromes including neck pain, headaches, carpal tunnel syndrome, lateral epicondylalgia, and on neuro-physiological effects and clinical effectiveness of manual therapy. He has been invited in 50 conferences giving lectures around the world.
Dr. Falowski underwent his neurosurgical residency training at Thomas Jefferson
University in Philadelphia, PA with a focus on Spinal Cord Stimulation and Pain management. He completed a functional neurosurgical fellowship at Rush University. He is presently Director of Functional Neurosurgery at St. Lukes University Health Network in Bethlehem, PA with a practice specializing in neuromodulation.
He is a member of several committees for functional neurosurgery that including secretary for the North American Neuromodulation Society(NANS), and annual meeting program chair. He is faculty of both Congress of Neurological Surgeons and American Association of Neurological Surgeons, as well as a board member of the CNS/AANS Executive Pain Committee.
His major focus in society and industry revolves around education, integration of specialties, and practice management. Roles include running the resident-fellows section and mentorship program through NANS. He has been the course director of the annual NANS spinal cord stimulation/neuromodulation workshop that is one of the largest international courses available. He also serves as course director for the INS cadaver workshops.
His primary focus and publications deals with utilizing intra- operative neuromonitoring for the asleep placement of spinal cord stimulators, as well as capturing live clinical data of SCS and waveforms using neuromonitoring.
His practice is primarily based on neuromodulation and its applications. He has developed a robust program that includes a Pain Center, Movement Disorder Center, and Epilepsy Monitoring Unit.
Prof. Dr. Andrea W.W. Evers is professor of Health Psychology and chair of the Health-Medical-and-Neuropsychology-Unit at Leiden University, the Netherlands. After her PhD (cum laude), Andrea Evers obtained several personal grants and awards for high potential researchers (e.g. NWO-Veni 2004, NWO-Vidi 2009, ERC Consolidator Grant 2013, NWO-Vici 2017) for her innovative, interdisciplinary and translational research on psychoneurobiological mechanisms and treatments for physical symptoms, such as pain and itch and pain. She combines fundamental and applied science, by focusing both on basic learning mechanisms of placebo and nocebo effects and related interventions for patients with chronic itch and pain. She published more than 200 (inter)national papers in her research field.
Christopher Eccleston, PhD, is professor of medical psychology at the University of Bath in the UK where he directs the Centre for Pain Research. He established the Bath Pain Management Unit at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, including the first residential rehabilitation programme for adolescents with chronic pain.
Currently he is chair of the scientific Committee of the European Pain Federation, coordinating editor for the Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care Cochrane Review Group, is Senior Editor for Cochrane Brain, Nerves and Mind, and is psychology field editor for PAIN.
His main interest is in neuro-cognitive mechanisms of analgesia, innovative psychological treatments, embodied pain, evidence based pain management, and e-health. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles, with a career adjusted web of science h-index of 2.7. In 2016 he published ‘Embodied: The Psychology of Physical Sensation’ and in 2018 he published the edited volume ‘European Pain Management’, both with Oxford University Press. In 2018 he will present the Ronald Melzack Award Plenary Lecture at the IASP World Pain Congress.
Marshall Devor is the Alpert Professor of Pain Research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI). He was born in Toronto, Canada in 1949. His bachelor’s degree is from Princeton University (1970) and his PhD from MIT (1975). He was a postdoctoral fellow with the pain research pioneer Prof. P.D. Wall at University College London and subsequently at HUJI. There he progressed from Research Associate (1977) to Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor and finally Professor in 1988. His research has focused on the neurobiology of neuropathic pain, and more recently also on mechanisms involved in loss of consciousness and pain-free surgery. His laboratory has published extensively in the pain field, with work of a notably integrative nature involving neurophysiology, computer simulations, neuroanatomy (light and electron microscopy), genetics, and behavioral models. He is author of >300 publications, career citations ~24,000, h-index = 77.
Dr Andrew Davies is the Specialty Lead for Supportive & Palliative Care at the Royal Surrey County Hospital/St Luke’s Cancer Centre in Guildford, United Kingdom. He is a Visiting Reader at the University of Surrey and has academic interests include opioid related adverse effects (nausea & vomiting, constipation). He is the President-Elect of the Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer, and is Present of the Association of Palliative Medicine for Great Britain and Ireland.
Michele Curatolo is professor for Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, where he holds an endowed professorship in medical education and research.
Michele Curatolo received his M.D. at the University of Messina in Italy and continued his career in Switzerland. He received a Ph.D. in Biomedical Science and Engineering at the University of Aalborg in Denmark. In 2014, Dr. Curatolo also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Aalborg.
Prof. Curatolo has been the chief of the Division of Pain Therapy in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Therapy at the University of Bern, as well as acting chair of the department. He has served in a variety of leading roles in academic and political institutions. Editorial responsibilities include roles as section editor for the European Journal of Pain, associate editor of Pain and editorial board member of the Scandinavian Journal of Pain.
Prof. Curatolo’s research focuses mainly on measuring nociceptive processes to understand mechanisms of human pain states and predict outcomes.
Dr Didier Bouhassira (MD, PhD) has been trained in neurology and neurophysiology in Paris. He has been involved in both basic and clinical research on pain and is currently Director of Research at the National Institut for Health and Medical Research (Inserm). He is associate attending neurologist in the Pain Clinic at Ambroise Paré hospital in Boulogne-Billancourt and director of the laboratory of “Pathophysiology and Clinical Pharmacology of Pain” (Inserm U-987).
Didier Bouhassira was president of the French Pain Society (2013-2016) and is an active member of several international associations or societies. He is field editor for the European Journal of Pain and associate editor for several scientific journals including Pain. He has co-authored over 190 articles in peer reviewed journals and has written a number of book chapters devoted to the pharmacology and pathophysiology of pain
Rae Frances Bell BA (Hons), MD, PhD is an anesthesiologist who has long experience as a clinician working with acute, chronic and cancer pain. She was head of the multidisciplinary pain clinic at Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway from 1994 to 2017 and is currently a research fellow at the Regional Centre of Excellence in Palliative Care, Western Norway. She is a reviewer for the Cochrane Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care review group (PaPaS) and former Chair of the IASP Special Interest group (SIG) for Systematic Reviews in Pain Relief. Her research interests include systematic reviews, ketamine for pain management, and the role of diet/lifestyle factors in chronic pain.
Dr Serena Bartys is a Chartered Psychologist and Principal Research Fellow in Work & Health. Her research interests are focused on the biopsychosocial nature of the work-health relationship, and improving communication and knowledge exchange in order facilitate the implementation of evidence-based solutions and reduce the evidence-policy-practice gap in the field. Dr Bartys recently completed a Policy Fellowship in the UK government’s Joint Work & Health Unit, providing her academic expertise to ministerial level policymaking. She was also appointed as a Specialist Advisor on Return-to-Work for the 2016 NICE guidelines on low back pain.
Dr. Alexander Avian is a senior researcher at the Medical University of Graz / Austria with the special emphasis on patient reported outcomes and modern methods in test theory. He studied psychology and obtained his Ph.D. degree from University of Graz in 2012. After seven years of research (2002 – 2009) at non-university institutes focusing on survey methods and psycho-physiological research, he took up his current position at the Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Documentation at the Medical University of Graz. Between 2015 and 2017 Dr. Avian was a visiting scientist at the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine (University Hospital Jena) and the Department of Research Methods in Education (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) for several months.
During the last 10 years, Dr. Avian has published over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts mainly in the field of pediatric and pulmonology (H-factor: 19). His main research topic is pain assessment in children. In this field, he conducted research on order effects of pain items, scale properties of pain scales and inconsistencies in children’s responses to pain scales. In his research, he wants to understand how children respond to pain scales. Furthermore, he is interested in factors not associated with pain, which are influencing children’s responses to pain scales. Furthermore, Dr. Avian is involved in the development of a progress test for undergraduate dental students, a questionnaire for quality of life assessment in patients with pulmonary hypertension, a questionnaire assessing psychosomatic competence and several other questionnaires. In his research, Dr. Avian uses modern item response theory (IRT) based methods to analyze patient’s responses.
Dr. Avian gives courses in biomedical statistics, scientific work and survey methods. These courses are dedicated to medical students, nursing students and professionals in the field of medicine.
Professor Lars Arendt-Nielsen, dr. med.sci., Ph.D., is founder and director of Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction (SMI), Aalborg University, Denmark and founder and director of R&D at the clinical trial unit C4Pain.
This interdisciplinary, internationally recognized translational pain research unit at SMI has been developed over the last 25 years with scientists coming from all over the world with 50% international researchers.
The research focus is on: 1) translational pain research, 2) human biomarkers for the assessment of pain from skin, muscles and viscera in healthy volunteers and pain patients, 3) development of human pain biomarkers for screening of new analgesic compounds in humans (volunteers and patients), and 4) proof-of-concept and target validation studies on new analgesic compounds.
Dr. Arendt-Nielsen’s publication record counts 1,016 peer reviewed journal papers (sum of times cited 29,963 average citations per item 29.78, H-index 80, Web of Science). Furthermore, he has delivered over 260 keynote lectures at international meetings and seminars.
He has been visiting professor in Japan, Sweden, USA, and Italy.
A substantial network of international collaborations has been established with universities and hospitals in 15 different countries, as well as the biomedical/pharmaceutical industry (20 international companies).
Has served on the council of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), co-president of the IASP Global Year Against Musculoskeletal Pain 2010, co-president of the IASP Global Year Against Joint Pain 2016, co-chair for IASP’s Special Interest Group (SIG) on Musculoskeletal Pain, head of the IASP Grant Committee, and Editor-in-Chief of IASP Press. In 2016 Dr. Arendt-Nielsen is elected President of IASP (period 2018-20).
In 2007 he was knighted by the Danish Queen for his contribution to science.
Christopher Eccleston, PhD, is professor of medical psychology at the University of Bath in the UK where he directs the Centre for Pain Research. He established the Bath Pain Management Unit at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, including the first residential rehabilitation programme for adolescents with chronic pain.
Currently he is chair of the scientific Committee of the European Pain Federation, coordinating editor for the Pain, Palliative and Supportive Care Cochrane Review Group, is Senior Editor for Cochrane Brain, Nerves and Mind, and is psychology field editor for PAIN.
His main interest is in neuro-cognitive mechanisms of analgesia, innovative psychological treatments, embodied pain, evidence based pain management, and e-health. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles, with a career adjusted web of science h-index of 2.7. In 2016 he published ‘Embodied: The Psychology of Physical Sensation’ and in 2018 he published the edited volume ‘European Pain Management’, both with Oxford University Press. In 2018 he will present the Ronald Melzack Award Plenary Lecture at the IASP World Pain Congress.
Andrew Somogyi is Professor in Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Adelaide, Australia. He trained as a pharmacist in Tasmania and obtained his PhD in 1978 from Sydney University researching the clinical pharmacology of muscle relaxants used in anaesthetics. He then underwent postdoctoral training under the mentorship of Prof Michel Eichelbaum (Bonn, Germany) who discovered the CYP2D6 genetic polymorphism. His major research interests are in examining interindividual variation in drug response through pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic and clinical outcomes studies of drugs for the treatment of acute and chronic pain especially the opioids and ketamine, all underpinned by genomics. He is currently researching genetic factors contributing to persistent post-surgical pain, and the role of the innate immune system in pain and opioid analgesia. He has published over 260 papers and review articles in the pain and pharmacogenomics areas with over 12000 citations and a H-index of 63. He has Australian Government Health Research funding for pharmacogenetic studies of opioids for acute postsurgical pain and pharmacogenomics in First Nations People. He serves on several international Editorial Boards including the Journal of Opioid Medicine and Pharmacogenetics and Genomics. He is an honorary fellow of the Faculty of Pain Medicine, Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (FFPMANZCA) and is a fellow of the British Pharmacological Society (FBPhs).
Dr. Maus graduated from Mayo Medical School in 1981, completed a Diagnostic Radiology residency at Mayo Graduate School of Medicine in 1985, and subsequently joined the Mayo Clinic Department of Radiology. He completed a Neuroradiology Fellowship at Mayo in 1996, and is currently Professor of Radiology, Mayo Clinic School of Medicine. Dr. Maus founded a section within Radiology to provide image-guided pain management procedures in 1999, working closely with Anesthesiology, PM&R, Neurology and Surgical colleagues in the Mayo multidisciplinary Spine Center. He has been a Mayo Teacher of the Year in Radiology, a multiple recipient of the Mayo Individual Award for Excellence, and the Carmen Award for Excellence in Clinical Practice in the Department of Radiology.
Dr. Maus has authored numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed articles on spine imaging and interventions. He is a co-investigator in an NIH funded research laboratory at Mayo examining novel analgesic strategies. He speaks regularly nationally, and internationally, on spine imaging and intervention topics. He has served as the Chair of the Spine Intervention Society (SIS) Education Division, Treasurer, Vice-President, and is now President of the Society.
Koen Paemeleire obtained his Medical Degree in 1995 at the University of Ghent, Belgium. He earned a PhD in Medical Sciences based on calcium signalling research with Professor Luc Leybaert at the Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology in Ghent and as a Fulbright Scholar with Professor Michael J. Sanderson at the Department of Physiology of the UMASS Medical Center, MA, USA.
He completed a five-year residency training programme in Neurology chaired by Professor Jacques De Reuck in Ghent. He trained in headache medicine with Professor Peter J. Goadsby at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen Square, London, UK. He works as a consultant neurologist at the Department of Neurology, Ghent University Hospital, Belgium since 2004, where he runs a specialized headache clinic. He was also appointed part-time Senior Lecturer in Neurophysiology at the Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium.
He served 6 years (2012-2018) on the board of the European Headache Federation and is Associate Editor of the Journal of Headache and Pain. His research focuses on the management of headache, neurostimulation techniques and migraine neurobiology. He is involved in multiple clinical trials testing CGRP (receptor) antibodies in the prevention of migraine and cluster headache.
Esther Pogatzki-Zahn is an anesthesiologist, pain specialist and full professor in the Department of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain Medicine, University Hospital Muenster, Germany. Her main clinical work is pain management (acute, chronic and palliative) and she is head of the pain service at the University Clinic in Muenster since 13 years. Furthermore, she has been trained as a PhD in neuroscience (1998-2003) in the
US (Baltimore and Iowa City) and runs now a basic science research lab at the University of Muenster.
Her research group is aiming to provide insight into the neuropathology of incisional, chronic inflammatory, neuropathic and cancer related pain by using behavioral, electrophysiological and in-vitro studies in rodents and cooperates with other researchers in the field of omics and imaging. In addition, she is working with human surrogate models of postoperative and neuropathic pain and uses quantitative sensory testing (QST), imaging techniques and omics to explore acute and chronic pain in humans as well as chronic itch in volunteers and patients. Finally, she performs clinical studies and is involved in a number of international multicenter projects like Pain-Out, a large international acute pain registry.
She is member of the Prospect Initiative (www.postoppain.org) and the DFNS e.V.. Prof. Pogatzki-Zahn won a number of national and international research awards like the IASP Collaboration Research Award, the EFIC Grünenthal Grant (E-G-G) and the Clinical scholar research award 2006 of the IARS, among others. She is part of several “pain” boards including the SIG Acute Pain of the IASP (currently the Co-Chair) and the European Society of Anaesthesiologists (Chair of the Scientific subcommittee 8, acute and chronic pain and palliative care), Member of the scientific program committee for the IASP Congress in Yokohama (2017) and Boston (2019) and the board of the German Pain Society. She published more than 120 original peer reviewed manuscripts, 40 review articles/ editorials and 16 Book chapters (h-Index: 35, Web of science).
Dr Stephen WARD has been a full time consultant in pain medicine since 2000 having trained at the Walton Centre in Liverpool. He is lead clinician for the department of pain medicine at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals and works primarily within the neurosciences unit.
His clinical interest is the management of spinal pain and interventional pain management. Academically, Dr Ward is a proponent of evidence based pain practice and is currently studying for a Master’s degree in medical statistics at Oxford University. He is an experienced guideline developer and systematic reviewer – he co-chaired the UK Map of Medicine low back pain pathway, was a member of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians guideline group and is the current Chair of the NICE guideline on low back pain and sciatica and Chair of the NICE guideline on Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Dr Ward was a member of the NICE Quality Standards Committee for low back pain and is a member of the Expert Advisers Committee at the NICE Centre for Guidelines. .
Dr Ward is a member of the Cochrane back group, the Standards Committee (evidence analysis) of the Spinal Intervention Society and was a member of the UK Clinical Reference Group for complex spinal surgery. He chaired the first UK National Pain Audit and has been a council member of the British Pain Society as well as an elected member of the board of the UK Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Royal College of Anaesthetists.
Joop van Griensven has been involved in voluntary work and lobbying since 1995.
Since 2000 Joop has been a board member of the Dutch national fibromyalgia association F.E.S. and until 2010 he fulfilled the positions of responsible of patient contacts, Treasurer, and Secretary of the organisation.
From 2008 he gets involved in the European Network of Fibromyalgia Associations, ENFA – as treasurer.
As from the launch in 2011 of Pain Alliance Europe, PAE – Joop van Griensven is the president of the organisation. PAE is a European umbrella alliance of national and regional associations involved with chronic pain, thus representing over 400.000 individual patients.
From that position he is also involved in several European research projects, as patient advisor.
Joop is the president of the patients’ advisory board for stay-at-home patients (6000 patients) of a big home care organisation and member of the central patient advisory board of that same organisation.
He is also member of the patient advisory board of the Dutch Medical Evaluation Board, CBG/MEB and act as a patient expert on pain and fibromyalgia for the European Medicine Agency EMA.
Thomas R. Tölle is a Professor of Neurology at the Technische Universität München, Germany. He is a neurologist and psychologist by training. He was formerly also appointed as Professor of Medical Psychology and Neurobiology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. He combines a basic and clinical research department with running a multi-disciplinary pain clinic.
He set up an interdisciplinary research group for clinical and experimental research into pain, focusing primarily on the neurobiological mechanisms of neuronal plasticity, pharmacological treatment and central imaging with fMRI and PET. His research and clinical interests also include the prevention and treatment of chronic neuropathic pain and he is spokesman and runs the headoffice of the German Research Network for Neuropathic Pain (DFNS). He served as the president of the German IASP chapter and was chair the scientific program committee for the EFIC European Pain Congress in 2017 in Copenhagen. Currently he is member at large of the Executive Board of EFIC and chair of the committee for advocacy in the EXB.
He was also as plenary speaker on world congress of pain of IASP and worked in various task forces of IASP, has authored many peer reviewed publications, participated in the development of various treatment guidelines and lectures on many aspects of pain medicine all over the world.
Information to follow.
Harriët Wittink, PhD PT, is Professor and chair of the Lifestyle and Health research group, Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Her research interests are chronic pain (physiotherapy) management, exercise physiology and clinimetrics.
She has authored over a 100 book chapters, monographs, and scientific papers. She holds a Master of Science in Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine from the Institute of Health Professions at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies from Boston University. In addition to extensive clinical experience providing physiotherapy for patients with chronic pain, Prof Wittink is frequently an invited speaker at medical congresses, including the Royal Dutch Society for Physical Therapy (KNGF), International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), International Federation of Orthopaedic Manipulative Physical Therapists (IFOMPT) as well as numerous regional conferences and meetings. She participated in writing the cancer rehabilitation guideline and the movement intervention standard for people with chronic pain. She is a reviewer for several (pain) journals and served on the editorial boards of Pain; Clinical Updates (IASP) and Fysiopraxis.
Chris Wells graduated in 1970 from Liverpool University. He trained in GP and anaesthesia, and was the first doctor in the UK to specialise solely in pain medicine in 1982. In 1983, he set up the first continuously-running Pain Management Programme in Europe at the Walton Centre, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. His clinical interests include the assessment and management of back pain and neuropathic pain. Dr Wells worked in North West England until he carried out his own Brexit to Portugal in 2016.
Dr Wells was a Council member of the British Pain Society from 1995 to 1999 and was Secretary from 2000 to 2002. He gave the Annual British Pain Society Lecture in 2008 and was made an Honorary Member of the Society that year. He started, with 2 others,, NeuPSIG, a Special Interest Group of IASP©. He was made one of 3 Honorary Members of this group in 2010.
Dr Wells was made an honorary member of IASP in 2016. He is also an honorary member of the Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Moldovan and Ukrainian Pain Societies. He was made a Citizen of Honour of Liverpool in 2016. He is a member of the recent NICE Guideline Development Group on low back pain and sciatica, completing the comprehensive report in 2016.
He is Vice-President of EFIC, The European Pain Federation. He initiated a multidisciplinary core curriculum in Europe, leading to a Diploma in Pain Medicine for all medical doctors, the European Pain Federation EDPM.
Joyce van Meurs, PhD is a trained Biologist and acquired her PhD in Biomolecular Science at the department of Experimental Rheumatology (1999, Radboud University, Netherlands) She is currently associate professor at the Department of Internal Medicine of the Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands. Her research is focused on integrative genomics of osteoarthritis and chronic pain, where multiple molecular levels (variation in
DNA/RNA/metabolome/microbiome) are combined to find common biological mechanisms underlying disease. Results from these large-scale genomic studies are being pursued towards developments of (personalized) new treatments and prediction tools. She works with multiple large cohorts and is leading musculoskeletal research within the Rotterdam Study (a large longitudinal cohort study of >15.000 individuals). Dr van Meurs has a leading role in worldwide consortia studying integrative genomics (CHARGE-consortium and BIOSBBMRI, OA-genetics). In addition, Dr van Meurs coordinates the high-throughput human genotyping facility at Erasmus MC (HuGe-F; www.glimdna.org), which provides genomic services for many (inter)national customers. At present, the applicant has published over 200 peer reviewed publications, (H-index is 54); she reviews papers regularly for high profile journals, has received multiple awards, and is member of several (inter)national scientific (advisory) committees.
Danielle trained as an epidemiologist in Amsterdam (VU University medical centre, PhD 1997), and worked with the department of general practice for 10 years, developing a programme of research on the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of musculoskeletal disorders and other common conditions in primary care. In 2006 she took up a joint appointment in Amsterdam and Keele, with the aim to build on my international experience and develop an international programme of research across the two Centres. She gradually took up more responsibilities at Keele, being involved in both the epidemiology and trials programmes. Since October 2009 she is fulltime appointed at Keele (chair in primary care epidemiology) and has become part of the Centre’s executive management team. She coleads the Centre for Prognosis Research at Keele University and leads or contributes to several clinical research programmes.
As a methodologist, she has a strong interest in prognosis research, evidence synthesis and health economics. Her research addresses questions regarding pain phenotypes (definition, diagnosis, and classification of pain); understanding the prognosis of pain conditions, including predictors of long-term outcome and predictors of response to treatment; and the development and evaluation of models of stratified care. She has successfully supervised the completion of 20 PhD theses and has (co)authored >220 publications in international peer-reviewed journals (H-index Google Scholar: 70).
After passing for gymnasium, Rianne continued with Nursing on the higher professional educational level, being a student nurse in the Radboud university medical center. At the age of 23, she received her Bachelor of Nursing. Her job was offered immediately after her graduation in the department of General Internal Medicine and then at the Thorax / Heart Surgery department. After three years, she started nursing education specializing in intensive care nursing. After four years at the Intensive Care department, she accepted the position of clinical pain nursing consultant at the Department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Palliative Medicine. She is still working at this department and has since been employed as a nursing expert and is the hospital leader for the theme “Early Recognition and Treatment of Pain”. In this function, she is responsible for all aspects of pain in patients, such as protocols, work instructions, patient education, training programs, reports and quality improvement programs of individual departments.
In addition to clinical work, Rianne initiated the two-year post-graduate program for pain nursing consultant at the HAN University of Applied Sciences. She still coordinates this training and some other courses related to pain and palliative care at the HAN. Furthermore, she has accepted the assignment to promote research and evidence based practice and give these topics a more prominent place in the courses within HAN VDO.
In 2013 she won a personal scholarship, “NWO Promotion Grant for Teachers”, to start her PhD study on acute postoperative pain management in collaboration with the Radboud University Medical Center and HAN. In 2017 she successfully defended her PhD thesis called:
Improving postoperative pain care: an Acute Pain Service data analysis.
Selection of 5 peer reviewed publications
• van Boekel, R. L. M., Warle, M. C., Nielen, R. G. C., Vissers, K. C. P., van der Sande, R., Bronkhorst, E. M., Steegers, M. A. H. (2017). Relationship Between Postoperative Pain and Overall 30-Day Complications in a Broad Surgical Population: An Observational Study. Ann Surg. doi:10.1097/SLA.0000000000002583
• van Boekel, R. L. M., Vissers, K. C. P., van der Sande, R., Bronkhorst, E., Lerou, J. G. C., & Steegers, M. A. H. (2017). Moving beyond pain scores: Multidimensional pain assessment is essential for adequate pain management after surgery. PLoS One, 12(5), e0177345. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0177345
• Hoogervorst-Schilp, J., van Boekel, R. L., de Blok, C., Steegers, M. A., Spreeuwenberg, P., & Wagner, C. (2016). Postoperative pain assessment in hospitalised patients: National survey and secondary data analysis. Int J Nurs Stud, 63, 124-131. doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2016.09.001
• van Boekel, R. L., Vissers, K. C., van de Vossenberg, G., de Baat-Ananta, M., van der Sande, R., Scheffer, G. J., & Steegers, M. A. (2016). Comparison of Epidural or Regional Analgesia and Patient-controlled Analgesia: A Critical Analysis of Patient Data by the Acute Pain Service in a University Hospital. Clin J Pain, 32(8), 681-688. doi:10.1097/AJP.0000000000000315
• van Boekel, R. L., Steegers, M. A., Verbeek-van Noord, I., van der Sande, R., & Vissers, K. C. (2015). Acute pain services and postsurgical pain management in the Netherlands: a survey. Pain Pract, 15(5), 447-454. doi:10.1111/papr.12192
In 2014, Rianne successfully completed the Master Epidemiology at the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research (EMGO +), the Interfaculty Research Institute of the VU Medical Center and the VU University in Amsterdam. She is an active member of the research department of Anesthesiology, Pain and Palliative Medicine of Radboud University Medical Center, and participated in various research projects, aiming to bring research closer to the public society, such as the Radboud research team at Lowlands 2016 and the Great National Research on the Sensitivity of Pain in The Netherlands (2017).
Supporting the development of pain nursing consultants, Rianne became the president of the Dutch Association of Pain nurses in 2015, an association that she founded with other colleagues in 2006. In this association, she has taken care of, among other things, the establishment of the area of expertise of Pain Nursing, as well as the Pain Nursing domain in the Nurses’ Quality Register. She is also the president of the multidisciplinary Working Group that prepares the new quality indicator Hospital-wide Pain Management for the Healthcare Inspectorate’s Basic set of Quality Indicators of hospitals.
She also served as a board member of the Dutch Pain Society and has been in Pain Alliance in the Netherlands (P.A.I.N.), established since April 2017.
Rianne is married to Marcel Eikholt. Together they have three children, Lucas, Emma and Sophie, respectively, 14, 12 and 9 years old.
Prof. dr. D. Tibboel (project leader) followed his training in Pediatrics from 1980 until 1984 at the Sophia Children’s Hospital. In 1984 he became head of the Pediatric Surgical Intensive Care and in January 1993 Sophia Foundation Professor of Experimental Pediatric Surgery.
In August 2005 he was appointed full professor (Research Intensive Care in Childhood).
In 2008 he became the director of the ICU at the Sophia Children’s Hospital. He is (co-) author of over 750 international peer reviewed articles. He is a member of several Editoral Boards, chairman of the scientific committee of the European Society of Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care (ESPNIC) and founder of the CHD EURO CONSORTIUM.
In 2002 he was awarded the Edgar Doncker prize from the Dutch Pediatric Association for his outstanding contributions in the fields of major congenital anomalies. In total, over 105 PhD students wrote their thesis under his guidance. In 2013 he was appointed Director of Research, Sophia Children’s Hospital. (publications 721, H-index 53 )
For more than 20 years I have been involved in chronic pain as a former CRPS patient and as Chair of the CRPS patient Society in the Netherlands and Chair of a patient society of 18 patient organizations (representing 40.000 patients) where chronic pain plays an important role. I have been involved in national and international research groups and participated in writing en developing the Evidence Based Guideline CRPS (2006 and 2014) and the Care Standard Chronic Pain (2017). I am also involved in the implementation of the Standard Chronic Pain in the Netherlands via Health Deal (regional ‘living labs’) to change the health care organization for chronic pain. For five years I am involved in improving pain management and registration of pain after surgery to get better care and cure in an academic hospital. I was a member of the Task Force CRPS from the EFIC and I am board member of the American CRPS Patient Society (RSDSA).
Professor of medical sciences Barbara Przewlocka obtained a doctor’s degree (Ph.D.) in Medical Biology from the Institute of Pharmacology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Krakow. She was the head of the Department of Pain Pharmacology and currently is a Professor in this department and elected member of Polish Academy of Sciences and Arts. She has nearly 30 years of experience in the neuroscience research. Her research topic is pharmacology of pain mainly in the field of basic and clinically relevant aspects of mechanisms of opioid action, and she has published more than 180 original scientific publications and reviews. She was PI or co-investigator for over 20 national grants and three grants of the EU.
She is involved in the education of medical students at Medical Center for Postgraduate Education at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. She was involved in the organization of several national and international symposia and congresses (e.g IASP Congress in Milan 2012) and presently she is member of the Scientific Committee of the EFIC Congress in Valencia 2019, a chair of EFIC Working Group for Grants and Prizes and a chair of European Pain Federation EFIC Pain School in Krakow, Poland “Translational Pain Research: FROM LAB TO CLINIC”.
She is a laureate of many prizes, including the M. Kopernik Scientific Award of the Foundation of the City of Krakow in the field of medicine (2010); Medal of Jędrzej Śniadecki, by the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences (2009) and Tadeusz Browicz Award by the Faculty of Medicine Polish Academy of Sciences and Arts (1998).
Barbara Przewlocka is a member of the scientific councils of the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology in Warsaw and Institute of Pharmacology in Krakow and a member of the committees of these councils, and she is a member of many international societies (IASP, EFIC, EOC). She was the vice-president of the Polish Society for Neuroscience and the Polish Association for the Study of Pain (Polish Branch of IASP). She is the editor-in-chief of the journal for clinicians and medical students in Poland “Bol”, member of editorial boards of several journals, including Pharmacological Reports, Neuropeptides and Open Pain Journal and is a reviewer of manuscripts submitted for publication in leading journals in area of pain and neuroscience.
Institute of Nursing Science
Vice Dean for Academic Affairs
Director WHO CC
Paracelsus Medical University, Salzburg, Austria
Professor Osterbrink is a registered general nurse who specialised in intensive care and anaesthesia as a Registered Nurse Anaesthetist (RNA). He holds a Master’s degree in nursing and health promotion from the University of Glasgow (UK) and a PhD in public health and nursing sciences from the University of Leuven (Belgium). In 2010, he was awarded an Doctor of Humane letters honorary doctor’s degree of the University of North Florida, Jacksonville, USA.
Since 2003, he has been Professor (Tenured) for Nursing Science at the University of North Florida, Jacksonville, USA. In 2007, he became Professor and Dean of the Institute of Nursing Science and Practice at the Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg, Austria.
Professor Osterbrink is a member of various national and international advisory boards for journals and educational and clinical initiatives. To date, he has published over 200 articles and book chapters. He is a member of the board of Directors of the ICN (www.icn.org) since 2013.
His research focuses on health care research, in particular ‘pain management’ and the ‘standardisation of pain therapy’. He is Scientific Director of the German Pain Standard and Principal Investigator of a number of long-term research projects, such as the project ‘Schmerzfreie Stadt (pain-free city) Muenster’ (www.schmerzfreie-stadt.de) or ‘InTherAKT’ (www.intherakt.de).
Since January 2016, the PMU Institute of Nursing Science and Practice under the leadership of Prof. Osterbrink was granted the status of WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing Research and Education.
Bart Jan Morlion has been Head of the Leuven Centre for Algology (formerly the Multidisciplinary Pain Centre) at the University Hospitals Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, since 1999. He received his medical degree in 1988 from the Catholic University of Leuven (KU Leuven) and subsequently trained in anesthesiology, intensive care medicine, and pain management at the Klinik für Anästhesiologie und operative Intensivmedizin, Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany, where he was appointed head of the clinical research unit of the department in 1995.
In 1988 he moved to the University Hospitals Leuven, and in 2011 gained his PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the KU Leuven, where he was appointed as clinical professor in 2012. From 2006-2012 he has been the President of the Belgian Pain Society – the Belgian Chapter of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) – and during this period he represented Belgium as councillor in the European Pain Federation EFIC©. Since 2013 he is member of the executive board of the European Pain Federation EFIC© as president-elect and took office as president in September 2017 for a three-year term.
He is program director of the Belgian Interuniversity Postgraduate Studies in Pain Management and is also an active member of several committees of international scientific societies.
Professor Morlion teaches pain management, pharmacology and evidence-based medicine at KU Leuven and several international higher institutions, since 1999. He has given more than 450 international and national invited lectures and seminars on pain management and clinical nutrition, and has authored a number of primary manuscripts, reviews, books, and book sections. He is the deputy editor of the European Journal of Pain, and a regular reviewer for several international journals. His professional interests include all aspects of multimodal chronic pain management, analgesics, and quality management. His clinical research focuses on the pharmacological treatment of chronic pain and organizational aspects of multidisciplinary pain management.
Professor (Chair) and Chief Physician
Director of Mech-Sense and Centre for Pancreatic Diseases
Department of Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Aalborg University Hospital, Mølleparkvej 4, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark
Education: MD from Aarhus University in 1983. He specialised in internal medicine and gastroenterology in 1997.
Degrees and awards: Defended his Ph.D. thesis at Aalborg University in 1998 and his doctoral thesis (D.M.Sc) at Aarhus University in 1999. Received the European Diploma in Pain Medicine (EDPM) in 2017.
Main academic positions:
• Associate Professor from 1996
• Research Professor in visceral pain from 2003
• Full Professor (Chair) in Medicine & Gastroenterology from 2007
Scientific work: Although he has always been fully employed as clinician he has authored 490 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and reviews and has an H-index of 49. He is a widely-recognised expert in pancreatology, visceral pain, pharmacology and brain-gut interactions. As such he is a frequent speaker and chairman at international congresses, and has been organizer of many international meetings. Currently he is member of the scientific board of European Society of Neurogastroenterology and European Federation of IASP Chapters. Since 2012 he has been the President of Scandinavian Association for Neurogastroenterology and Motility. As Principal Investigator, his primary research interests are chronic pancreatitis, gastrointestinal pain, brain-gut axis, motility pharmacology of analgesics, physiology of the gastrointestinal tract, clinical gastroenterological studies, imaging and technology development. He serves as editorial board member for several journals, has participated in expert groups for the Danish Health and Medicines Authority, and is co-inventor of patents.
Grants and awards: He has received awards from the Danish Association of Gastroenterology, The “Muusfelt” award and Danish Association of Rehabilitation Medicine. In 2018, he received the prestigious “Hagedorn Prize” from Danish Association of Internal Medicine. He’s research has been funded from many different national and international foundations such as Karen Elise Jensen´s Foundation, The Obel Family Foundation, the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation and EU 7th Framework Programme (grant No. # 223630). Currently his research program is mainly supported by a research grant (#10-092786/DSF) offered by the Danish Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, involving researchers from 6 countries.
Clinical and research management: He is a widely-recognised expert in gastroenterology and pain, especially in diseases of pancreas and oesophagus. He has participated in more than 10 courses in management arranged by the Danish Medical Association. He holds the chair as Professor at Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology with responsibility for budgets and quality control. He co-founded and is now Director of Mech-Sense, which is a multidisciplinary research centre where he has the leadership of 24 co-workers (among them 10 Ph.D. students and 8 postdocs). He is leader of the Clinical Trial Unit and the Centre for Pancreatic Diseases. He has outstanding experience as leader of research activities in-house as well as in multi-centre studies.
Supervisor duties, teaching and GCP: Has previously supervised 43 Ph.D. students and is currently supervisor for 6. He teaches medical students and students in health technology as well as postdocs and specialists within medicine, gastroenterology, pain and pharmacology. Is member of the Danish GCP association and participated in several GCP courses arranged by the association and by the Danish Medical Authorities. He has participated as Principal Investigator in more than 50 studies (phase I, II and III) mainly within pain treatment and gastroenterology.
Kaare Meier received his medical degree from University of Southern Denmark in 2006 and his PhD from the Danish Pain Research Center, Aarhus University in 2012. He is currently employed as staff specialist at Department of Anesthesiology and Department of Neurosurgery at Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark.
His field of work is neuromodulation therapies for chronic pain, primarily spinal cord stimulation, and more recently also peripheral nerve stimulation for extremity pain and occipital nerve stimulation for cluster headache.
As the author of the only international database for neuromodulation therapies, he holds great interest in the economic and epidemiological aspects of neuromodulation, but he has also been active in animal research, clinical trials, and neurological studies of spinal cord stimulation.
Kaare Meier is the chairman of the Nordic Neuromodulation Society and a board member of the International Neuromodulation Society.
Stephen McMahon is Sherrington Professor of Physiology at King’s College London. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He trained with Prof PD Wall at University College London and since then has run his own research laboratory in London.
His major research interest is pain mechanisms. He has a long-standing interest in identifying pain mediators and studying their neurobiological actions. He has worked extensively on the role of NGF (neutralizing antibodies now in multiple phase III trials), ATP acting at P2X3 receptors (receptor antagonists now in multiple phase II and III trials). His current research is focused on neuro-immune interactions, particularly the neurobiology of chemokines, and the genetics and epigenetics of pain.
Professor McMahon currently directs the Wellcome Trust Pain Consortium, and prior to this, the London Pain Consortium, a collection of leading pain researchers working to better understand chronic pain mechanisms and improve treatments. He was academic lead on a EU-IMI consortium called Europain, a collaboration of scientists working in academia and industry, 2009-2015. He is also deputy Chair of the MRC’s Neuroscience and Mental Health Board.
He has published more than 300 research articles in scientific journals including, Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Neuroscience, Cell, Neuron and the Journal of Neuroscience and has an H-index of 102 (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=Qz9HihUAAAAJ&hl=en)
Affiliation: Department of Pain Research and Treatment, Chair of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Medical College, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland
Expertise: Magdalena Kocot-Kępska is a medical doctor, specialized in anesthesiology and intensive therapy. In 2009 she graduated from the two-year postgraduate studies “Pain Medicine” in Postgraduate Medical Training Centre of Jagiellonian University in Kraków.
In 2012 she defended the doctoral thesis and received the PhD title.
In 2017 she obtained the European Diploma in Pain Medicine.
Dr Kocot-Kępska works since 2001 in the Department of Pain Research and Treatment, a multidisciplinary pain clinic specializing
in acute, chronic non-cancer and cancer pain, cooperating with Institute of Pharmacology of Polish Academy of Sciences.
Dr Kocot-Kępska is involved in pre- and post-graduate teaching in the fields of pain medicine, anesthesiology and intensive care.
She is a lecturer at the Postgraduate Medical Training Centre of Jagiellonian University in Kraków and in courses of the European Committee for Education in Anesthesiology CEEA.
Since 2010 she is a member of International Advisory Board of EFIC “Change Pain”.
Publication history: Dr Kocot-Kępska has over 100 articles
published in scientific journals and has given over 100 lectures
at national and international congresses. She is also a co-author of the Polish textbooks on pain and national recommendations on pain treatment.
Societal responsibilities: Dr Kocot-Kępska is a secretary of the Polish Association for the Study of Pain (Polish Chapter of EFIC and IASP).
Since 2017 she is a Member at Large of Executive Board of EFIC.
She is also a member of national advisory boards and foundation on pain and is involved in the organization of several national and international symposia and congresses on pain.
Frank Huygen is working as an Anaesthesiologist pain specialist in the University Hospital “Erasmus Medical Centre” in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Since 2009 he is appointed as full Professor in Anaesthesiology especially Pain Medicine at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is director of the centre of pain medicine. This centre is a multidisciplinary pain clinic specialised in acute, chronic benign and oncologic pain and palliative care (including the treatment of congenital and acquired spasticity with intrathecal Baclofen).
Frank Huygen is principal investigator of the Academic Centre of Pain Medicine (Erasmusmc ACE). He is especially interested in the Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. In 2004, he received a PhD on writing a thesis titled “Neuroimmune alterations in the Complex Regional Pain Syndrome”. He is responsible for and/or participating in several research lines focussing especially on CRPS and neuropathic pain. He published > 150 peer reviewed articles.
He is involved in the education of medical students at Erasmusmc and responsible for the training of anaesthesia residents and anaesthesia fellows in pain medicine. He is responsible for the organisation of an education block on Neuromodulation in the master Technical Medicine at the Technical University in Delft.
He is Vice chair of the examination board of the FIPP examination of the World Institute of Pain. He is member of the editorial board of the journal “Painpractice”. He is member of the editorial board of “Evidence based Interventional Pain Practice: according to Clinical Diagnoses”. He is Chief editor of the ”Handbook pain medicine”.
He was involved in the organisation of several national and international symposia and congresses on pain. He is past elected president of the Dutch Anaesthesia Pain Society. He is chairman of the section Benelux of the WorId Institute of Pain. He is member of several (inter)national scientific advisory boards on pain medicine.
Frank Huygen is graduated as fellow of interventional pain practice in the world Institute of Pain in 2008. In 2011 he received the IASP research international collaboration grant. In January 2016, Frank Huygen received an honorary Fellowship in the Faculty of Pain Medicine in the College Anaesthetists of Ireland. Frank Huygen is appointed as member of the central disciplinary tribunal for healthcare in The Hague in January 2013.
Thomas Graven-Nielsen, DMsc, PhD, Professor received a M.Sc.EE degree within Biomedical Engineering from Aalborg University, Denmark in 1994 and acquired his PhD within Biomedical Science and Engineering in 1997 (Aalborg University). In 2006 he obtained a Doctoral degree in Medical Science (dr.med, Copenhagen University). He is Director at Center for Neuroplasticity and Pain (CNAP), SMI, Department of Health Science and Technology, Aalborg University, Denmark (since 2015), and Full Professor in Pain Neuroscience since 2008.
The Danish National Research Foundation funds CNAP. Adjunct Professor at University at Western Sydney, Australia (since 2015), and Adjunct Professor at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia (since 2004). The research focuses on translational studies of musculoskeletal pain bridging the gap between basic animal findings and clinical manifestations of pain. The scope is to identify and modulate key features of human pain neuroplasticity leading to prevention of maladaptive neuroplasticity and promote advantageous neuroplasticity. Development of pain models, bio-markers, and assessment technologies are key biomedical tools for the translational studies. The core areas are muscle pain, joint pain, referred pain, localised and widespread deep-tissue hyperalgesia, pharmacological screening, and electrophysiological techniques to assess muscle pain physiology and neuroplasticity.
He has published 300+ papers and reviews (250+ peer-reviewed, H-factor: 53) and received several awards. He reviews papers on a regular basis for high ranked journals, has presented as keynote speaker at several international conferences, and organised scientific workshops and symposia at international meetings. More than 10 national and international collaborations on translational pain research have been established including research groups in Sweden, UK, Japan, USA and Australia.
I was born and raised in Wiesbaden/Germany and trained in Anaesthesia / Pain Medicine in Wuerzburg/Germany, and in the UK (Oxford, UCLH), and for post-trauma immunology at Harvard Medical School, Boston, US.
I work as Consultant in Pain Medicine at the Liverpool Walton Centre, and as Reader (associated Professor) in Pain Medicine at the University of Liverpool.
My research has focused on the role of the adaptive immune system in causing chronic pain. Based on our laboratory results, I have developed the idea of ‘autoantibody-pain’, a conceptual framework for explaining persistent Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), and additional severe primary chronic pains; I first proposed the concept of using passive transfer models to assess the contribution of IgG autoantibodies to chronic pain in 2004, have since established the first such model, and have led a group which has been successfully testing innovative immune-modulating treatments, particularly for the group of patients with longstanding CRPS. Our combined laboratory-clinical translational work has recently led to a first change in international guidelines, with the inclusion of CRPS as an indication into the ASFA guidelines for plasma exchange in 2016.
I have initiated, and have been leading the UK interdisciplinary CRPS Guidelines Group, under the Umbrella of the UK Royal College of Physicians, which has published its revised guidance in July 2018, endorsed by 29 UK professional organisations and Royal Colleges. I am Chair of the Special Interest Group ‘CRPS’ of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), and Chair of the European Pain Federation Task Force on CRPS.
In daily practice, I see patients at the Walton Centre, in secondary and tertiary outpatient clinics, Pain Management Program assessment clinics, and in operation theatres for neuromodulation trials. For my academic part, I also work as Director of the Liverpool Pain Research Institute – supporting Pain Research in the NW of the UK https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/pain-research-institute/.
Luis Garcia-Larrea (Madrid, 1956) obtained his MD and PhD degrees, and the medical specialisation in Clinical Neurophysiology from the University of Barcelona (Spain). He is currently Research Director at the INSERM (National Agency for Medical Research, France), Head of the Inserm / University research Lab “Central Integration of Pain in Humans” (NeuroPain) at the Centre for Neuroscience of Lyon, and member of the Neurological Hospital Pain Center.
His main research interests are the cortical processing of somatic sensations, the diagnosis and prediction of neuropathic pain, and its therapy using cortical neurostimulation. He is author of more than 180 scientific publications and 50 didactic papers on these topics, and Editor of the Book “Pain in the Conscious Brain” (IASP–Wolters-Kluver 2016).
He served as President of the French (2008-10) and European (2010-2015) Societies of Clinical Neurophysiology, and is currenly Deputy Director of the Human Biology Department of Lyon Claude Bernard University (2013- ), and Editor-in-Chief of The European Journal of Pain (2016 – ).
He serves as member of the European Task Forces for the Assessment of neuropathic pain and neurostimulation techniques (European Federation of Neurology – EFNS) and has received awards from the Institut de France (Neuroscience Prize 2009; Pain research prize 2015), the French Pain Society (Translational Research Award 2013) and the IASP (Ronald Melzack Lecture Award 2012).
Dr Brona Fullen is an Associate Professor lecturer in University College Dublin’s School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, Ireland. She holds a BSc Physiotherapy (UUJ), MSc Healthcare (Acupuncture, UCD), and PhD (UCD) degrees.
Clinically Brona specialized in the topic of pain working in Pain services at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, St Vincent’s University Hospital and Tallaght Hospital Dublin.
In UCD she teaches in the area of pain science to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. She is Director of the MSc programmes in Advanced Physiotherapy Studies and Healthcare (Acupuncture). She is a co-Director of the UCD Centre for Translational Pain Research.
Her research areas of interest include the assessment and rehabilitation of people with chronic pain in a range of conditions including musculoskeletal dysfunction, obesity, and spinal cord injury. She has supervised MSc and PhD students to completion, and has presented her research at national and international meetings.
Brona is a past President of the Irish Pain Society (Chapter of the International Association for the Study of Pain), and the first Chartered Physiotherapist to be elected President-Elect of the European Pain Federation EFIC®.
Nanna Brix Finnerup, MD, DrMedSc, is Professor and head of the Danish Pain Research Center, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Denmark. Nanna Finnerup graduated from the Medical School at Aarhus University 1993, and after internship worked at the department of Neurology and Clinical Neurophysiology at the University of Copenhagen. Since 1998 she has worked at the Danish Pain Research Center at Aarhus University. She obtained her degree of Doctor of Medical Sciences from Aarhus University in 2008, and is currently Professor at the Danish Pain Research Center.
Dr. Finnerup has authored more than 130 refereed publications. Her main research interest is the pathophysiology and therapy of neuropathic pain. Current research areas include spinal cord injury pain, chemotherapy-induced neuropathic pain, painful diabetic polyneuropathy, postsurgical neuropathic pain, thermal sensory integration, neurophysiological assessment of pain mechanisms, placebo mechanisms, neuropharmacology, clinical trials, and systematic reviews.
Dr Finnerup is vice-chair of NeuPSIG, the neuropathic pain SIG of IASP and past president of the Scandinavian Association for the Study of pain (SASP). She is section editor of the journal PAIN. She has given a plenary lecture at the World Congress on Pain and the Sir Ludwig Guttman lecture at the International Spinal Cord Injury Society.
Prof. Elon Eisenberg graduated from Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University in Israel. He completed a residency in Neurology, at Rambam Medical Center, Haifa, Israel, and Neurology – Pain Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA.
Prof. Eisenberg has been the director of the Institute of Pain Medicine at Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel, and the President of the Israeli Pain Association. He is currently the director of the Pain Research Unit at the Institute of Pain Medicine, Rambam Health Care Campus. He is a Professor of Neurology and Pain Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and holds the Otto Barth Family Academic Chair in Biomedical Science at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. His main areas of research include mechanisms and treatment of pain with special emphasis on neuropathic pain, CRPS, cancer pain, opioids and cannabinoids. Prof. Eisenberg has published about two-hundred articles, book chapters and abstracts in various areas of pain.
Dr Didier Bouhassira (MD, PhD) has been trained in neurology and neurophysiology in Paris. He has been involved in both basic and clinical research on pain and is currently Director of Research at the National Institut for Health and Medical Research (INSERM). He is associate attending neurologist in the Pain Clinic at Ambroise Paré hospital in Boulogne-Billancourt and director of the laboratory of “Pathophysiology and Clinical Pharmacology of Pain” (INSERM U-987).
Didier Bouhassira is an active member of several international associations or societies and is the immediate past president of the French Pain Society. He is field editor for the European Journal of Pain and associate editor for several scientific journals including Pain. He has co-authored over 190 articles in peer reviewed journals and has written a number of book chapters devoted to the pharmacology and pathophysiology of pain.
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