KI researcher Saida Hadjab has been awarded funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation for her project "A Game-Changing Therapeutic Target for Lasting Pain Relief", which addresses a major unmet medical need in chronic pain and headache disorders. Designed to fast-track the commercialisation of cutting-edge research in sustainability and health, the grant aims to support bold innovations that have real-world impact.
Chronic pain and headache disorders affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide and are among the leading causes of disability. Despite major advances in pain biology, available treatments remain largely symptomatic. Many patients experience only partial or transient relief, while long-term use is often limited by side effects, tolerance, or lack of efficacy.
Work from Hadjab's laboratory has identified a previously unrecognized, stable pathological state in pain-sensing neurons that actively maintain chronic pain.
"This project is about treating pain and headache disorders at their biological root. By targeting the mechanisms that lock neurons into a disease-maintaining state, we aim to achieve durable, disease-modifying pain relief, especially for patients resistant to current therapy," says Saida Hadjab , Principal Researcher and group leader at the Department of Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet.
By integrating single-cell genomics, mechanistic neuroscience, and translational models, the project redefines therapeutic strategies for chronic pain and headache disorders to pave the way for a new class of disease-modifying analgesics with long-lasting clinical impact.
