NINDS Director affirms NIH's committed to support pain research at APS meeting

May 10 2013

In her keynote address to the 32nd American Pain Society Annual Scientific Conference, Story Landis, PhD, director of the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), told the APS audience that NIH is committed to research to improve understanding of the biological basis of pain and the development of effective treatments.

"Even though the NIH budget has been flat over the past several years, the dollars committed to pain research have increased from $279 million in 2008 to $396 million in 2012. In FY13, however, pain research will be affected by the reductions in funding due to the sequester," said Landis.

Landis explained that in accordance with the recommendations issued by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) issued in its 2011 report, "Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care Education and Research," NIH designated NINDS as the lead NIH institute for pain research and has established a dedicated office within NINDS to support the Pain Care Consortium. Many Institutes and Centers at NIH are part of the Pain Consortium, which serves to coordinate and foster basic, translational and clinical research on the causes of and treatments for pain across NIH.

The NINDS Director provided a number of examples of significant research currently funded by NIH. These include basic science studies to identify potential compounds to relieve inflammatory and neuropathic pain. Other studies will engage health care delivery organizations as research partners through the NIH's Health Care Systems Research
Collaboratory. The objective for the Collaboratory is to provide a framework of implementation methods and best practices to foster participation of many health care systems in clinical research and strengthen the relevance of research results for everyday health practice. One project involves Kaiser Permanente facilities in Georgia, Seattle and Hawaii working on chronic pain management in primary care settings.

SOURCE American Pain Society