Pain in Europe XI – The 11^th Congress of the European Pain Federation (EFIC) Valencia (Spain)  4^th-7^th September 2019

 Bringing the Future to the Present was the inspirational motto of Pain in Europe XI – The 11^th Congress of the European Pain Federation (EFIC) taking place in Valencia (Spain) from the 4^th to the 7^th of September 2019. Living up to being the largest pain congress in Europe, the event welcomed the most renowned speakers from around the world. Experts in the pain field presented their inspiring work on stage covering a multidisciplinary array of topics, ranging from basic pain science to the optimization of diagnostic procedures, management and treatment of pain-related conditions. Particularly worthwhile mentioning were the insightful talks by Prof Marzia Malcangio and Prof Eva Kosek (TOBeATPAIN research leaders) on the role of the immune system in pain as well as on pain modulation, neuroinflammation, and periphery-to-central nervous system inflammatory cross-talk in patients with musculoskeletal chronic pain. The event engaged young talented researchers who were given the chance of introducing their cutting-edge work to the EFIC audience with the aim of, indeed, bringing the future to the present.  This openness towards the new generation is a highly motivating reason for Early Stage Researchers to pursue research with a never-ending enthusiastic attitude. The next EFIC Congress will be held in Dublin in 2021 and we are already looking forward to be possibly bringing our scientific contribution to it.

Review by Silvia Fanton

TOBeATPAIN Early Stage Researcher 3

‘Intellectual Property (IP) and commercial exploitation’ presented by Michele Dubbini from EURICE

During the training the early stage researchers (ESRs) had the opportunity to gain understanding of legal terms and regulations regarding IP and IPR as well as relevant clauses of the ITN’s grant agreement. Michele Dubbini, an IP and innovation advisor from EURICE, helped the ESRs develop insight into their obligations and rights established by the grant agreement. Particularly interesting were the explanations about balancing the needs of publishing and exploiting the future findings of the ITN. The training made the participants aware of what their rights regarding the data they produce are. As all of the ESRs will be doing secondments, many of which will mean moving from academia to an industrial environment or vice versa, it was essential for the legally naive young scientists to familiarize with rules regarding to such a secondment in order to prevent conflicts from occurring. The students were also informed on how and from whom to seek help in case of any doubt relevant to the topic. Furthermore, the gained skills will also benefit the ESRs long term as they resulted in the students having a basic legal foundation for future collaboration establishments in academia and industry. The participants consensually agreed that the training was extremely beneficial for them for the present and the future.

Review by Zerina Kurtovic

TOBeATPAIN Early Stage Researcher 5

Experimental Design and Practical Data Analysis in Positron Emission Tomography (PET) & Transferable Skills Training course

We are more than happy to announce that the first TOBeATPAIN scientific workshop took place at St Thomas’ Hospital in London during the first week of May and was a great success. The early stage researchers (ESRs) had the chance to meet for the first time and exchange ideas, discuss their project plans and organise future events including patient and public involvement activities.

The workshop, entitled “Experimental Design and Practical Data Analysis in Positron Emission Tomography (PET)”, was hosted by Professor Federico Turkheimer, Dr Mattia Veronese and other members of the molecular neuroimaging group at the Department of Neuroimaging at King’s College London (KCL). The primary focus of the workshop was to introduce the ESRs to the importance of functional imaging both for preclinical and clinical studies, lending weight to the analysis of the results by providing multiple hands-on sessions. Moreover, a key feature of the course was the in-depth presentations on the basics of IBM SPSS® and MATLAB ®, while also by thoroughly explaining the statistical basis of the PET analysis the instructors covered the whole process of setting up and analysing an experiment. Finally, the workshop was assisted by the book “Experimental Design and Practical Data Analysis in POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY “and “Statistics without equations” written by Professor Turkheimer and Dr Veronese, so that the ESRs will have a point of reference before commencing on future experiments. Finally, the workshop was concluded by a Transferable Skills Training course given by Dr Aiofe Kiely from the Alzheimer’s Organisation entitled “Knowledge communication: Public engagement, fundraising and CSR”, where ESRs gained insight into writing public-oriented scientific articles raising awareness, and also learned the importance of communicating basic research to people that suffer from a pathological condition.

Before the completion of the first scientific workshop, the ESRs met the director of the programme Professor Marzia Malcangio, who has expressed her excitement to work with the eleven ESRs, thus underlining that the future of the TOBeATPAIN programme will involve collaborations among passionate scientists from different institutes around Europe aiming to understand and tackle pain. Undoubtedly, the first scientific workshop was only the beginning for the TOBeATPAIN researchers with more events to be announced.

By Georgios Sideris Lampretsas

TOBeATPAIN Early Stage Researcher 1

World Parkinson’s Day 12th April 2019 King’s College London Parkinson’s Centre of Excellence

On 12th of April a celebration for World Parkinson’s Day 2019 was hosted by the Parkinson Foundation Centre of Excellence at King’s and Professor K Ray Chaudhuri (TOBeATPAIN Horizon2020). The event showcased the width of translational and people-based Parkinson’s research that is being carried out in the campus within King’s Health Partners.
Internationally recognised scientists were invited to give inspiring talks about the non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. Among those distinguished speakers were Prof. Peter Jenner, Prof. Dag Aarsland, Dr Sarah Salvage and the organizer Prof. K Ray Chaudhuri. All of them are known worldwide for their expertise in translating basic and pre-clinical biomedical research into clinical findings that benefit patients. They showed us different ways of approaching important aspects of non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, including pain. It was very exciting to meet all of them and be aware of their important findings and research.
Furthermore, it is worthy of note that the event included patients with Parkinson Disease. They gave talks and described the experience of living with the disease. It was very touching to listen their stories. They motivated us to continue our research and try to understand the mechanisms underlying the non-motor symptoms of the disease and to investigate novel treatments.

By Joana Lama

TOBeATPAIN Early Stage Researcher 2