Award and Prize Lectures at the 2026 World Congress on Pain recognize pioneering contributions in the field of pain research and treatment. These sessions highlight individuals whose work has had a lasting impact on the science and practice of pain management.
Prediction and Prevention of Chronic Post-Surgical Pain
Esther Pogatzki-Zahn, MD, PhD, will discuss improving pain management for surgical patients through multidisciplinary strategies. She emphasizes why coordinated care across specialties is critical for effective acute pain relief and how it can reduce the risk of developing chronic post-surgical pain. The talk also covers new research on predicting high-risk patients and interventions to prevent long-term pain after surgery.
Esther Pogatzki-Zahn, MD, PhD
University Hospital Muenster, Germany
Beyond Ion Channels: Metabolic Control of Pain Sensitivity
Steve Middleton, PhD, will discuss how sensory neuron hyperexcitability contributes to chronic pain and why pain research must look beyond ion channels to better understand how neuronal excitability is controlled. He will highlight new findings identifying SLC45A4 as a novel pain gene and the first neuronal membrane polyamine transporter. The talk also covers how polyamine transport shapes pain sensitivity and may point toward new therapeutic strategies for chronic pain.
Steve Middleton, PhD
University of Oxford, UK
Taking Perceptual Science to the Clinic to Revamp Care for Those in Pain
Ulf Lindblom Young Investigator Award for Clinical Science
Tasha R. Stanton, PhD, will discuss how perceptual science can inform and improve care for people living with pain. She will explore how predictive processing and active inference help explain bodily feelings such as pain, as well as behaviors such as engagement with exercise. The talk also covers how pain science education and technologies such as virtual or mediated reality can update perceptions of the body and its capacity, helping clinicians better understand why exercise may feel easier or harder independent of physical ability.
Tasha R. Stanton, PhD
South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, Australia
Sex Hormones and Pain Across the Lifespan
Patrick D Wall Young Investigator Award for Basic Science
Dr. Hadas Nahman-Averbuch will explore the role of sex hormones in experimental pain sensitivity and chronic pain across the lifespan, with a focus on migraine and endometriosis in adults and adolescents. She will discuss how changes in sex hormone levels relate to changes in pain, including hormone-related changes in endometriosis and the effects of puberty on experimental pain. The talk also covers individual variability in hormonal factors and how migraine and endometriosis may interact to influence chronic pain severity.
Hadas Nahman-Averbuch, PhD
Washington University School of Medicine, USA