European Commission: FP7
  • Developing new therapies
  • Enhancing individual therapies
  • Improving clinical diagnostics
  • Understanding mechanisms of pain

Non-coding RNAs for personalised pain medicine

Chronic pain syndromes which develop after nerve damage, trauma, or surgery are characterized by persistent and severe pain. They induce anxiety and depression and greatly impair patients’ quality of life. One out of five Europeans suffer from chronic pain, many of them for more than two years, some even longer. Chronic pain therefore constitutes not only a heavy burden for individual patients and their families, but also for national health systems in Europe since treatment costs take up 1.5 to 3 % of their gross domestic product (GDP) per year. Advancing scientific research in this field is thus a societal need and a crucial engagement for improved patient care.

ncRNAPain: on the trail of chronic pain

With ncRNAPain, a new European research project sets out to further explore the biological mechanisms underlying chronic pain. Endowed with an overall funding budget of 6 million euros by the European Commission for the next four years, the project will focus on non-coding RiboNucleic Acids (ncRNAs). The project aims at decoding these biological molecules’ role, which perform multiple vital roles in our genetic make-up and in the generation of chronic pain syndromes. The project is designed to deepen scientific knowledge on how pain is generated, propagated, and eased.

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No 602133.