UK researchers tackle chronic pain

London Pain Consortium receive 5 million GBP Strategic Award - News Release

Issued by the Wellcome Trust

Thursday 13 December 2007

A consortium of UK researchers is aiming to develop a better understanding of and new ways to treat the causes of chronic pain. The Wellcome Trust, the UK's largest medical research charity, today announces that it has awarded a 5 million GBP Strategic Award to the London Pain Consortium (LPC), to be complemented by over 1 million GBP from the institutions involved in the consortium.

Chronic pain is a devastating and widespread problem, affecting one in five adults. According to the European Pain Network, Europeans with chronic pain suffer on average for seven years. The costs to society are huge, with an estimated 500 million lost working days costing 34 billion Euros a year in Europe. Yet despite recent advances in understanding how pain is processed in the body, there has been little progress in translating this understanding into better treatments.

"The last two decades have given us a wealth of knowledge regarding the biological processesthat underlie chronic pain, but the excitement and optimism of the laboratory is tempered by the stark reality of the clinic," says Dr Andrew Rice, Clinical Reader in Pain Research at Imperial College London. "The challenge now is to put this knowledge into a human context and ultimately translate it to better care for patients."

The LPC, which includes researchers from Imperial College London, King's College London and University College London, and now including the University of Oxford, has received a major award from the Wellcome Trust to build on its existing five-year research programme. The consortium was set up in 2002 with funding from the Wellcome Trust.

The researchers will use techniques spanning bioinformatics and molecular biology through integrated systems neuroscience to experimental medicine studies using functional imaging and genetic techniques in patients.

"Pain is a complex process and as such, research into its causes requires a multidisciplinary and innovative approach," says Dr Rice. "We will be using some of the most cutting-edge tools to tackle this problem."

In collaboration with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, the researchers aim to use genome-wide association studies - a powerful technique involving studying genetic markers across the human genome - to explore how genetic variation between individuals affects the evolution of chronic pain and a patient's sensitivity to analgesics.

"This award will allow our Consortium to identify the genes that control the volume control on pain," says the Science Director Professor Steve McMahon, who is based at King's College London.

The consortium now includes the functional brain imaging group led by Professor Irene Tracey from the FMRIB Centre at Oxford University. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanners, which look for subtle changes in human brain activity related to pain perception, the researchers will explore the extensive changes that occur within the central nervous system in humans that lead to the development and maintenance of chronic pain states. This work provides potentially novel targets for intervention as well as biomarkers to assess different treatments.

The LPC will continue to provide an innovative research training programme in neuroscience, and pain in particular.

"The keystone of our training programme is our four-year PhD programme," says Professor Tony Dickenson, Professor of Neuropharmacology at UCL. "This will prepare science and medical graduates for modern research careers by combining training in molecular and cellular processes with integrative physiology and experimental medicine perspectives. This unique programme embeds literature assessment in pain research, summer schools with young researchers from abroad, update sessions and workshops from visiting experts into a continuing education programme."

"Chronic pain is a complex problem and tackling it requires an innovative, integrated approach," says Professor Morris, Head of Neurosciences and Mental Health at the Wellcome Trust. "Over the past five years, the London Pain Consortium has excelled in furthering our understanding of pain, how it occurs and how it is processed. The Wellcome Trust is delighted to provide further support through this Strategic Award."

Since it was established in 2002, the LPC has published over 280 scientific papers as well as developing new animal and human models for pain, creating a publicly available Pain Database and training more than 30 PhD students and postdoctoral scientists.

-ends-

For further information please contact:

Craig Brierley
Media Officer
Wellcome Trust
T 020 7611 7329
E c.brierley@wellcome.ac.uk

Notes for editors:

1. The London Pain Consortium was formed by a group of researchers in June 2002 by a grant from the Wellcome Trust, under its Integrative Animal and Human Physiology Initiative. The purpose of the consortium is to undertake internationally competitive research in pain research and to train scientists in the integrative physiology and genomics of pain.

2. The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK. It funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending around £500 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas. The Wellcome Trust supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact on health and wellbeing.

3. Imperial College London

Rated as the world's fifth best university in the 2007 Times Higher Education Supplement university rankings, Imperial College London is a science-based institution with a reputation for excellence in teaching and research that attracts 11 500 students and 6000 staff of the highest international quality.

Innovative research at the College explores the interface between science, medicine, engineering and management, and delivers practical solutions that improve quality of life and the environment - underpinned by a dynamic enterprise culture.

With 66 Fellows of the Royal Society among its current academic staff and distinguished past members of the College including 14 Nobel Laureates and two Fields Medallists, Imperial's contribution to society has been immense. Inventions and innovations include the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. This commitment to the application of our research for the benefit of all continues today with current focuses including interdisciplinary collaborations to tackle climate change and mathematical modelling to predict and control the spread of infectious diseases.

4. King's College London is the fourth oldest university in England with approximately 13 700 undergraduates and 6200 graduate students in nine schools across five London campuses. The College has had 24 of its subject areas awarded the highest HEFCE rating of 5* and 5 for research quality and it is home to five Medical Research Council Centres - more than any other university. King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, social sciences, natural sciences, biomedicine and nursing, and has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA.

5. UCL

Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the Government's most recent research assessment exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence.

UCL is in the top ten world universities in the 2007 THES-QS World University Rankings, and the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2007 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Marie Stopes, Jonathan Dimbleby, Lord Woolf, Alexander Graham Bell and members of the band Coldplay.

6. Oxford University's Medical Sciences Division is one of the largest biomedical research centres in Europe. It represents almost one-third of Oxford University's income and expenditure, and two-thirds of its external research income. Oxford's world-renowned global health programme is a leader in the fight against infectious diseases (such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and avian flu) and other prevalent diseases (such as cancer, stroke, heart disease and diabetes).

Key to its success is a long-standing network of dedicated Wellcome Trust-funded research units in Asia (Thailand, Laos and Vietnam) and Kenya, and work at the MRC Unit in The Gambia. Long-term studies of patients around the world are supported by basic science at Oxford and have led to many exciting developments, including potential vaccines for TB, malaria and HIV, which are in clinical trials.

7. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, which receives the majority of its funding from the Wellcome Trust, was founded in 1992 as the focus for UK sequencing efforts. The Institute is responsible for the completion of the sequence of approximately one-third of the human genome as well as genomes of model organisms such as mouse and zebrafish, and more than 90 pathogen genomes. In October 2005, new funding was awarded by the Wellcome Trust to enable the Institute to build on its world-class scientific achievements and exploit the wealth of genome data now available to answer important questions about health and disease. These programmes are built around a faculty of more than 30 senior researchers. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is based in Hinxton, Cambridge, UK.