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Pain Research Group

Team photo

What we do

Our research focuses on translational research in neuropathic pain, particularly in the contexts of infectious disease (HIV, Herpes zoster, HTLV-1 and leprosy), diabetes and other polyneuropathies, and nerve damage related to conflict/military service.

Our main research themes are:

Preclinical evidence synthesis and methods development (systematic review and meta-analysis), especially as pertains to drug development
Improving internal and external validity, and rigour in the use of animal models in pain research
Deep phenotyping of patient cohorts with a view to enabling precision medicine approaches for the treatment of neuropathic. Much of this work is delivered in a collaborative manner with other groups.
Clinical evidence synthesis and trial methods
Developing clinical pain management within the concept of Integrated Rehabilitation
Pain management and teaching in low & middle income countries, with a focus on South and Southeast Asia
Applied history, with a focus on 20th century conflicts

Why it is important

The Global Burden of Disease studied has shown that, along with mental health, chronic pain is the leading cause of disease burden (Years Lost to Disability) worldwide. Neuropathic pain is a major sub-type of chronic pain defined by the International Association for the Study of Pain as Pain directly caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory system (ICD11 - MG30.5). Significant, quality of life impacting, neuropathic pain has a population prevalence of between 7 and 10%, making it an important public health problem. In the absence of disease modifying therapies the clinical management of neuropathic pain is focussed around accurate diagnosis, full assessment of the patient as an individual and pharmacological approaches for symptom control, all of which we seek to improve through our research strategy. This is an area of therapeutic need: current pharmacological options are of modest efficacy, associated with significant adverse effects and responses are difficult to predict at an individual patient level. Furthermore, non-pharmacological approaches for neuropathic pain management are under-explored and under-employed, partially within the context of an interdisciplinary team approach to integrated rehabilitation.