Our Research

Opportunities to be involved in research

The following studies are actively recruiting participants:

MiTiGate Trial

Elucidate Study

Current projects

  • Modulation of pain perception

    Modulation of pain perception

    Pain is a salient percept that can draw our attention away from our current task so we can deal with potential bodily harm. We are interested in how our thoughts and actions can help us deal with pain, for example by distracting us from a painful stimulus. To address this, we use different tasks to…

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  • Molecular Interplay in Progression of Neuropathic pain and Parkinson’s Disease.

    Molecular Interplay in Progression of Neuropathic pain and Parkinson’s Disease.

    This study aims to identify the differential gene and protein expression associated with pain pathways in iPSCs-derived sensory neurons obtained from Parkinson’s patients or patients with TSC mutations vs iPSCs controls sensory neurons using genetic and proteins analyses. Then determining the functional abnormalities in patients’ iPSC-derived sensory in response to pain stimuli by using functional…

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  • EXTIRPATE study: Irreversible Pulpitis

    EXTIRPATE study: Irreversible Pulpitis

    Dental pain mechanisms remain poorly understood. Outcomes from current approaches to managing acute dental pain are suboptimal. EXTIRPATE focusses on developing a biological model to better understand peripheral and central pain mechanisms, explore the effect of current approaches on these mechanisms and investigate new treatment approaches.

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See all research projects

Our Research Themes

Mechanisms and pathways of pain

Our work aims to understand how and why acute and persistent pain is experienced in painful conditions such as toothache, persistent facial pain, and neuropathic pain.

Pain therapeutics and clinical trials

In this research theme, our work explores new targets to treat painful conditions and assesses the efficacy, safety, and cost-effectiveness of clinical treatments.

Pain diagnostics

This work aims to improve on the current methods that clinicians have to diagnose pain conditions, and to measure and assess people’s experience of pain.

Applied pain research

Our research uses innovative clinical research, integrating multidisciplinary perspectives, to explore how best to help people who suffer from painful conditions.

Our Collaborators

Academic collaborators
  • Osaka University, Japan
  • University of Minnesota, MN, USA
  • Aarhus University, Denmark
  • University of Liverpool, UK
  • University of Sheffield, UK
  • University of Leeds, UK
  • University of Manchester, UK
  • Durham University, UK
Industrial collaborators

We work with several companies in the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors.