Andrea Polli
Researcher, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium.
Andrea’s research will explore whether epigenetic mechanisms could help to explain the link between stress intolerance and pain.
WINNERS OF THE EFIC-GRÜNENTHAL GRANT 2022
Out of an outstanding 79 applications, the EFIC® Research Committee selected five research projects for funding of up to €40,000 per project. Find out more about the five deserving winners below and how they felt after receiving their award. We are excited to see how their research will advance our understanding of pain and inspire the next generation of researchers in the pain medicine field.
Roberta Gualdani
Assistant Researcher, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium.
Roberta’s project will investigate how mutations to a specific ion channel, the transient receptor potential channel, could predispose individuals to developing neuropathic pain, with the goal of ultimately finding more personalised targeted therapies for people with chronic pain.
Alberto González Villar
Researcher, University of Minho, Portugal.
Alberto’s project will analyse brain activity to try and better understand how interpersonal touch, such as hugging, could affect pain perception and sensitization.
Shafaq Sikander
Senior Lecturer in Sensory Biology at the William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London, UK.
Shafaq will use the E-G-G grant to expand her clinical work into understanding pain mechanisms in musculoskeletal disease. Her project will focus on profiling patients in order to identify a biomarker signature for chronic pain in early rheumatoid arthritis.
Cindy Germaine Boer
Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Cindy’s research will aim to understand the effects of changes in the gut microbiome on the knee pain of osteoarthritis patients, and determine if the microbiome could be a novel therapeutic target for pain.