The London Pain Consortium

Chronic pain affects millions of people, yet doctors have few effective treatments to offer them. The London Pain Consortium will train a new generation of scientists to uncover the biological roots of chronic pain—the molecular signals, genes, and neural circuits that turn a temporary injury into a lasting torment. In both human volunteers and animal models, the researchers will identify the genetic and molecular influences on pain processing, then study how these factors work together in the body and whether they can be targeted with drugs. The project also creates shared resources—data, tools, and training materials—for the wider scientific community. If successful, this work could eventually lead to new painkillers that work better and have fewer side effects than current options, which often lose effectiveness or cause addiction. But the primary aim here is fundamental science: building a deep understanding of pain mechanisms, not developing a specific drug. Similar curiosity-driven research into nerve signalling has already transformed medicine, from local anaesthetics to migraine treatments.