An £11 million Oxford University project plans to develop a new generation of personalised treatments capable of reducing or abolishing chronic pain.

Oxford University is to lead a six-year, £11 million project backed by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to develop a new generation of personalised treatments capable of reducing or abolishing chronic pain.

The EPIONE (Effective Pain Interventions with Neural Engineering) programme wants to tackle the problem which affects up to half of Britain’s population with engineering and neuroscience. 

The programme will use a systems engineering approach to target the brain’s own pain networks. By combining advanced sensor systems, neuromodulator technologies, adaptive control algorithms, and precise pain network targeting, EPIONE will result in novel therapies that directly modulate brain activity to reduce or even abolish pain.

“The programme is unique in bringing this level of expertise to work together closely on such a highly integrated project. This will allow us to develop smart therapies for chronic pain that monitor the body and adjust treatment dynamically – rather than delivering fixed doses,” said Tim Denison, RAE chair in emerging technologies at the Department of Engineering Science, who is co-leader of the project. 

Substantial impact

Project collaborators include the University of Cambridge, University of Glasgow and UCL, besides clinicians at NHS pain clinics. 

EPIONE will also partner with representatives from industry, both multi-nationals and SMEs, to translate new concepts into clinical treatments. These include University of Oxford spinout Amber Therapeutics which will provide the technological platform for EPIONE’s first clinical trials.

Over the course of the programme, the researchers expect to deliver an adaptive brain implant that can sense and respond to pain signals in real time, ready for clinical trials at scale for ultimate NHS approval; an implantable closed-loop drug delivery system, which automatically adjusts medication based on a patient’s needs, minimising side effects and risk of addiction; and non-invasive ultrasound and magnetic stimulation techniques capable of targeting multiple brain regions at once. 

“‘Neurotechnology has the potential to realise substantial impact on reducing the burden of chronic pain in the UK and worldwide,” said Ben Seymour, who co-leads the Pain Theme at the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre, and is the other co-leader of the project.