We are assembling an exciting line-up of plenary speakers! Get to know those that are confirmed so far by clicking on a photo.
Elon Eisenberg, MD
Professor
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Plenary Debate Speaker
Elon Eisenberg is a Professor of Neurology and Pain Medicine at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and a Senior Research Fellow at the Samuel Neaman Institute for National Policy in Haifa, Israel.
He was the former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion – and held the Otto Barth Family Academic Chair in Biomedical Science.
Prof. Eisenberg has been the Director of the Institute of Pain Medicine at Rambam Health Care Campus, In Haifa, Israel, President of the Israeli Pain Association and a Board Member of the European Pain Federation (EFIC).
He has published over two-hundred articles, book chapters and other manuscripts in various areas of pain including neuropathic pain, CRPS, cancer-related pain, opioids and cannabinoids.
Elena Enax-Krumova, Jun.-Prof. Dr. med.
Jun.-Professor
Department of Neurology, BG University Hospital Bergmannsheil Bochum Germany
Dr. Elena Enax-Krumova is neurologist and pain specialists and works currently as senior physician at the Department of Neurology, University Hospital Bergmannsheil Bochum, Germany. After graduating from the German Language High School in Sofia, Bulgaria, she studied medicine in the Medical School at the Ruhr University Bochum 2002-2009. During her studies she was already interested in the pain research and obtained her degree of Dr. med. from the Ruhr-University Bochum in 2009 for a study on the diagnostic value of skin temperature measurements for diagnosing complex regional pain syndrome under the supervision of Prof. Dr. C. Maier in the Department of Pain Medicine, University Hospital Bergmannsheil Bochum, Germany. Afterwards she worked as a research fellow with Prof. Dr. C. Maier from 2009-2012, where she performed several studies on the mechanisms and treatment of neuropathic pain and complex regional pain syndrome. She also worked in the Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) Lab, was involved in the building of a normative database for QST and is still involved in QST studies and the certification procedures for QST labs nation- and worldwide. Since 2020 she holds an endowed professorship funded by the German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV). Her main research interests are the pathomechanisms, diagnostics and treatment of neuropathic pain, CRPS and posttraumatic headache. In the Department of Neurology, University Hospital Bergmannsheil Bochum she is responsible for the Skin Biopsy Lab and for a special consultation hour for patients with polyneuropathy and small fiber neuropathy as well as for patients with headache.
She is a member of the German Research Network on Neuropathic Pain (DFNS), the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) and the special interest groups on Neuropathic Pain and Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, the German Pain Society and the German Neurological Society, among others. She was also a member of the EU Innovative Medicines Initiative grant Europain. Dr. Enax-Krumova was awarded the German Pain Award 2008, the Faculty Award of the Medical Faculty, Ruhr University Bochum 2010 and the Sophia-and-Fritz-Heinemann Award of the Ruhr University Bochum 2013.
Nanna Brix Finnerup, Dr. med
Professor
Danish Pain Research Center, Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Denmark
Nanna Finnerup received her medical degree from Aarhus University in 1993. After medical training in Copenhagen, she started doing clinical neuropathic pain research in 1998. She is professor in neuropathic pain research and head of the Danish Pain Research Center, Aarhus University, Denmark. Nanna Finnerup was member of NeuPSIG from 2010 to 2022 and has served as treasurer and chair. She has been section editor of the journal Pain from 2015 to 2024. She is past president of the Scandinavian Association for the Study of Pain (SASP) and has been member of the IASP task forces on Classification of Pain Diseases (ICD11), Cannabinoids, and the Definition of pain. She has authored more than 230 peer-reviewed papers. Her main research interest is the pathophysiology and therapy of neuropathic pain. Current research areas include painful chemotherapy and diabetic polyneuropathy, postsurgical neuropathic pain, spinal cord injury pain, cerebral palsy, radiculopathy, complex regional pain syndrome, Guillain-Barré syndrome, as well as the neurophysiological and molecular assessment of pain mechanisms, placebo mechanisms, neuropharmacology, stratified clinical trials, and systematic reviews.
Koichi Hosomi, M.D., Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan
Koichi Hosomi is a neurosurgeon specializing in functional neurosurgery and neuromodulation therapies for intractable pain and movement disorders. Since 2015, he has been an associate professor at Osaka University, Japan, where he also completed his training in functional neurosurgery and earned his Ph.D.
Koichi Hosomi is a neurosurgeon specializing in functional neurosurgery and neuromodulation therapies for intractable pain and movement disorders. Since 2015, he has been an associate professor at Osaka University, Japan, where he also completed his training in functional neurosurgery and earned his Ph.D.
He serves as both a clinician and a researcher at a university hospital and laboratory. He has extensive experience in functional neurosurgery and has conducted numerous experimental and clinical studies on neuromodulation therapies for chronic pain. His research interests include functional neurosurgery, neuromodulation, neuroscience, and central post-stroke pain. He has published multiple papers on clinical trials, neuroimaging studies, and clinical neurophysiology related to both surgical and non-invasive neurostimulation techniques for intractable pain.
Brian S. Kim, MD, MTR
Professor
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, United States
Social Media: @itchdoctor; https://www.briankimlab.org
Dr. Kim is the Sol and Clara Kest Professor of Dermatology, Vice Chair of Research, Director of the Mark Lebwohl Center for Neuroinflammation, and Lead of the Allen Discovery Center for Neuroimmune Interactions at the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute and Friedman Brain Institute at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He has >160 peer-reviewed publications, multiple NIH grants, designed pivotal clinical trials that led to novel FDA-approved treatments, and is an inventor of itch-centered technologies. He is co-founder of Alys Pharmaceuticals, an immuno-dermatology biotech company. Most recently, Dr. Kim was awarded the role as the Lead of the Allen Discovery Center for Neuroimmune Interactions which is a $10 million multi-institutional center funded by the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. He was awarded the Marion B. Sulzberger, MD Memorial Award and Lectureship by the American Academy of Dermatology in 2024.
Yvonne C. Lee, MD, MMSc
Professor
Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, United States
Dr. Yvonne Lee is the Helen Myers McLoraine Professor of Rheumatology and Associate Professor of Medicine (Rheumatology) and Preventive Medicine (Epidemiology) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is a rheumatologist and clinical researcher who studies pain mechanisms in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and their impact on the patient experience of pain. She graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School and completed her internal medicine residency at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, MO. Dr. Lee subsequently completed rheumatology fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. During this time, she also received a Master’s of Medical Science from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Lee’s research focuses on the pathogenic mechanisms that drive chronic pain in patients with RA. Her overall goal is to identify novel targets for safe and effective treatments for pain in patients with systemic rheumatic diseases. Current studies are examining the acute to chronic pain transition in patients with early RA, identifying the impact of sleep disturbances on chronic pain in RA, and investigating immunophenotypic and transcriptional heterogeneity as biomarkers of pain in patients with RA.
Tony Pickering, MB ChB, PhD, FRCA
Professor
School of Physiology, Pharmacology & Neuroscience, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
Tony is a practicing anaesthetist and pain clinician. He leads the Anaesthesia, Pain and Critical Care research group at The University of Bristol. His research investigates the brainstem and spinal cord organisation of mission-critical control circuits regulating key sensory and autonomic functions. His team uses genetic circuit manipulation approaches to define the operating principles of these systems and seeks to apply this knowledge in human experimental medicine investigations and clinical trials.
Andrew Rice, Professor
Professor of Pain Research
Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Plenary Debate Speaker
Andrew Rice is Professor of Pain Research at Imperial College London, where he leads the Pain Research Group. He is currently serving as President of the International Association for the Study of Pain.
His research focusses on translational research in neuropathic pain in the context of infection (HIV, leprosy, HTLV-1 & zoster), diabetes, conflict-related trauma and non-freezing cold injury. Having been active in pre-clinical pain research (esp pathophysiology of HIV neuropathy, animal modelling and cannabinoid pharmacology), he now works on innovating pre-clinical experimental design, validity and evidence synthesis. Andrew’s clinical research includes deep profiling of neuropathic pain patients with a view to elucidating risk and enabling precision medicine, clinical trials and evidence synthesis. He collaborates with historians on aspects of neuropathic pain.
Andrew has authored ~250 publications (H-index 67), many in the leading specialist journal (PAIN). He has published in other notable journals including: Lancet, Brain, Lancet Neurology, Nature Methods, NEJM & BMJ.
Andrew has served as a Councillor of the International Association for the Study of Pain, liaison to South-East and is currently South Asia liaison. He was Chair of the Scientific Programme Committee for the 18th World Congress on Pain and of the Taskforce on Cannabinoid Analgesia. He previously held leadership positions in the IASP Special Interest Group on Neuropathic Pain.
Andrew has received multiple awards including Imperial College’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Animal Research; the Patrick Wall Lecturer at both the British Pain Society and the Faculty of Pain Medicine and the Michael Cousins lecturer at the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists. www.imperial.ac.uk/people/a.rice
Annina Schmid, MMACP, MMANIPTHER, PHD
Professor
Oxford University, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, United Kingdom
Annina Schmid is Professor of Pain Neurosciences and a Specialist Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Oxford University in the UK. She leads the Neuromusculoskeletal Health and Science Lab (https://www.ndcn.ox.ac.uk/research/neuromusculoskeletal-health-and-science-lab) which uses a translational and interdisciplinary approach to study the pathophysiology of focal nerve injuries with the ultimate goal to improve management for patients.
Annina and her team specialise in deep clinical phenotyping combining clinical methodologies (e.g. psychophysical testing, neurophysiological recordings, sensory profiling) with advanced neuroimaging and cellular and molecular analyses of human bio-samples to gain a detailed understanding of changes associated with nerve injuries and neuropathic pain. Annina also has a special interest in the physiotherapeutic management of neuropathic pain and entrapment neuropathies with the ambition to develop precision therapy for these patients.
Annina’s research contribution has been recognised by the prestigious Emerging Leaders Prize in Pain Research from the Medical Research Foundation. She has won seven highly competitive fellowships and has been the first allied health professional to be awarded the Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust.
In addition to her research activities, Annina teaches postgraduate courses related to pain and neuroscience internationally. She also maintains a weekly caseload as a specialist musculoskeletal Physiotherapist.