Point to where it hurts

Peter is a research fellow in the Pain Centre Versus Arthritis in the School of Life Sciences, at the University of Nottingham. Recently, Peter has been interested in understanding the contribution of inflammation to chronic osteoarthritis pain. Specifically, Peter’s talk will revolve around the potential of the Omega-3 and -6 fatty acids in reducing chronic joint pain, and whether we can target the body’s own natural anti-inflammatory pathways to provide pain relief.

Louise Hickey is an Associate Professor in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Nottingham and is interested in how the brain controls pain. Her research aims to explore areas of the brain that are involved in normal pain processing. She uses a cutting edge technique called optogenetics to do this. It is important that we identify the neural pathways involved in normal pain processing so that we can then understand how this goes wrong in patients with chronic pain. This is crucial in the quest to develop better treatments to support patients living with chronic pain.

Dr Richard Hulse investigates how the sensory nervous system regulates pain perception in health and disease. When sensory neurons are turned on this typically leads to pain and underlies how long lasting pain can develop in patients. This can occur in those patients who have cancer, diabetes, treated with chemotherapy or have arthritis. Having spoken directly to diabetic and cancer patients who suffer from pain, he is directly aware of how this can impact upon quality of life and forms the basis for many of the research questions he wishes to answer.