The Innovation in Treatment and Prevention theme aims to discover and refine pain treatments, evaluate their efficacy, and develop strategies to prevent pain, injury, and functional decline.
This includes drug discovery, translation of drug discoveries, development of conservative interventions, and comprehensive programs to maintain performance and health.
Innovation in Treatment and Prevention theme team
Coordinated Research Program
Our strategy targets significant barriers in pain management, including:
- Translating treatments from pre-clinical animal models to effective human treatments.
- Evaluating promising molecules as potential novel drugs before developing them into treatments.
- Matching treatments to the right patient at the right time, despite lacking evidence on how to do this effectively.
- Identifying modifiable features underlying age- and disease-related decline (e.g., scoliosis, neurological disorders) contributing to pain and injury.
Significance
This program will:
- Develop new treatments and pathways for translation to human research.
- Create models to match treatments to patient characteristics.
- Identify new targets for prevention and treatment strategies to reduce pain and injury associated with aging, disease, and physical activity.
- Drug discovery – analgesic agents
- Drug discovery translation Refinement of measures to evaluate treatment effects in animal models
- Exoskeletons to support movement
- Innovative use of wearable sensors Clinical decision tools Embedding of mechanism research in human clinical trials.