Peripheral and Central Acute and Chronic Pain and Pain Control Mechanisms: Technology, circuits, pharmacology and the neuroimmune contribution

Angelika Lampert, MD, is the Director of the Institute of Neurophysiology at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. She coordinates the Sodium Channel Network Aachen and serves as speaker of the Scientific Center for Neuropathic Pain Aachen (SCNAACHEN), focusing on inherited neuropathic pain syndromes such as small fiber neuropathy linked to sodium channel mutations. Her research emphasizes translational basic science, including patient-derived stem cells, Patch-Seq, sodium channel biophysics, and pharmacology. Angelika is co-chair of the IASP Global Year 2026 on Neuropathic Pain. 

Kirsty is Associate Professor of Neuroscience at Imperial College London. Her research bridges preclinical and clinical approaches to investigate descending pain modulation in chronic pain. She has held academic positions at UCL and King’s College London, and received the EFIC IBSA Prize (2017), IASP Patrick D. Wall Award (2022), and British Pain Society Wall Award (2023). Kirsty is the current IASP World Congress on Pain Scientific Program Chair.  She also serves on editorial boards including Pain and British Journal of Pharmacology, and holds leadership roles within the British Pain Society, and EFIC.

Allan Basbaum completed undergraduate studies at McGill University in Montreal, his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, and postdoctoral research at University College London. Presently, he is professor and chair of the Department of Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco. His research focuses on primary sensory and spinal cord neuronal circuits that transmit injury messages from the periphery to the brain. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of PAIN and recently completed service on the NIH Help End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative committee and on the Council of the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and is a fellow of the Royal Society in the United Kingdom.

Myung-chul "Sam" Noh is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and is based in the Department of Neurobiology and a member of the Pittsburgh Center for Pain Research. He received his PhD in Pharmacology under the supervision of Professor Peter Smith at the University of Alberta, where he studied the role of interleukin-1β and neuroinflammation in the persistence of neuropathic pain. He subsequently completed postdoctoral training with Professor Rebecca Seal at the University of Pittsburgh, where he investigated how transcriptomically distinct dorsal horn neurons mediate mechanical allodynia and chemical itch. His independent research program investigates the circuit logic of the dorsal horn. He studies how local interneuron networks shape the way spinal circuits sort sensory signals into distinct outputs such as pain and itch, and how injury reshapes these circuits to maintain chronic pain.

Dr. Chiu is a Professor of Immunology at Harvard Medical School. His central research focus is to determine the role of neuroimmune interactions in pain and tissue immunity. He received his PhD in Immunology at Harvard Medical School in Mike Carroll’s lab, and completed postdoctoral training in neurobiology at Boston Children’s Hospital in Dr. Clifford Woolf’s lab. Dr. Chiu began his independent faculty position at Harvard Medical School in 2014, and was promoted to full professor in 2024. Dr. Chiu has found that peripheral sensory neurons directly detect bacterial pathogens and their mediators to produce pain and itch. These neurons, in turn, secreted neuropeptides that potently modulate immune cells to impact host defense and inflammation. His research has impacted our understanding of neuroimmune crosstalk in the skin, gastrointestinal tract, respiratory tract, and meninges. Defining how neurons sense microbes and crosstalk with immune cells could lead to new treatments for pain and inflammatory diseases. Dr. Chiu has received the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease Award, NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative Ben Barres Award, and Kenneth Rainin Foundation Innovators Award.