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Painhack is a hackathon-based event that will foster interdisciplinary collaborations and push the boundaries in pain research and management. The Painhack will bring together diverse perspectives from scientists of any background, clinicians, and persons with lived experience.
The Painhack will feature 10 projects. Projects are pain-related and interdisciplinary by nature and will uphold the highest possible standards of open science.
Over the course of two days, participants will meet and work together under the guidance of their team leader, who submitted the project. To facilitate this collaborative work, each team will have access to a Github Repository and a Discord Channel. These resources will remain available after the World Congress to support further collaboration if appropriate.
Painhcak Projects
A Low-Cost, Open-Source Multisensor Platform for Quantifying Human Thermal Pain Withdrawal
In this workshop, attendees will build a low-cost, open-source multisensor platform to objectively measure human withdrawal behavior during thermal pain stimulation. The overall goal is to prototype a standardized hot/cold test station that combines thermal stimulation with synchronized behavioral sensing, offering an alternative to subjective pain ratings. During the two-day onsite hackathon, participants will collaboratively design, assemble, and test a fully integrated system combining accelerometers, force sensors, and additional behavioral inputs, all driven by Arduino-based hardware and open-source software. Key tasks include synchronized data acquisition, real-time visualization of behavioral signals, and the development of a stable, modular casing for sensors and thermode placement. By the end of the event, the team aims to deliver a functional, reproducible prototype along with openly shared hardware designs and software tools, enabling other laboratories to easily rebuild, adapt, and extend this human thermal pain withdrawal platform.
Leader: Ole Goltermann
Co-leader: Lars Keuter
Developing a Multilingual, Low-Literacy Patient-Reported Outcome (PRO) Measure for Cancer-Related Pain
Cancer-related pain remains underreported and inadequately managed, particularly among patients with low literacy levels and those who speak languages other than English. Existing patient-reported outcome (PRO) measures often rely on complex language and text-based formats, limiting their accessibility and validity in diverse populations. This project aims to develop a multilingual, low-literacy patient-reported outcome (PRO) measure specifically designed to assess cancer-related pain. The project will use a patient-centered and culturally responsive approach, engaging patients, caregivers, clinicians, and language experts in the co-development process. Plain language, visual aids, and alternative response formats will be incorporated to ensure comprehension across literacy levels. The measure will be developed and translated into multiple languages using rigorous forward–backward translation and cultural adaptation methods. Psychometric testing will be conducted to evaluate the tool's reliability, validity, and responsiveness across linguistic and cultural groups. The resulting PRO measure will enable more accurate pain assessment, improve communication between patients and healthcare providers, and support equitable pain management in oncology settings. Ultimately, this project seeks to reduce disparities in cancer pain assessment and contribute a scalable, inclusive tool for clinical care and research.
Leader: Sunil Shrestha
Precision Medicine to Prevent Trigeminal Neuralgia Recurrence Post–Microvascular Decompression
This project tackles the unpredictable recurrence of trigeminal neuralgia (TN) - one of the worst forms of human pain - after microvascular decompression (MVD) surgery, initially seemingly curative in a majority of well-indicated cases. We propose a two-phase precision medicine approach. First, we will develop a validated AI-driven Relapse Risk Matrix using real-world registry data from the US Facial Pain Association Orofacial Pain Patient Registry to stratify patients by recurrence risk. Second, we will conduct a 36-month exploratory trial comparing two prophylactic regimens - low-dose naltrexone vs a turmeric/ epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG; green tea antioxidant natural compound) combination - in high-risk patients, utilizing historic controls and AI-generated digital twins for comparison. By shifting from a reactive management strategy after oftentimes devastating post-MVD recurrence of TN to proactive prevention, this PainHack aims to secure durable remission, integrate deep phenotyping, and create a scalable blueprint for improving the practice of pain medicine in trigeminal pain.
Leader: Wolfgang Liedtke
Co-Leader: Ena Bromley
PainSignal: A Real-World, Patient-Driven, Platform to Detect Analgesic Synergies and Safety Signals in Self-Treatment
PainSignal is a patient-driven, open-science platform designed to close a critical gap in pain research: the lack of real-world data on how people actually manage chronic pain, particularly through supplements, botanicals, over-the-counter products, and multimodal combinations seldom documented in clinical care. The PainSignal project aims to capture daily pain trajectories linked to real-time medication and supplement use, enabling detection of potential analgesic synergies and early safety signals. The overall goal is to transform patient self-management data into structured, reproducible evidence that can generate new hypotheses, inform future observational and clinical studies, and improve safety guidance around self-treatment. At the PainHack summit, we aim to co-develop a functional prototype, a pilot dataset, and a transparent analytical pipeline with an interdisciplinary team, demonstrating feasibility, fostering collaboration, and laying the groundwork for scalable, global deployment of PainSignal.
Leader: Karry Jannie
FibroExplain Pro: A Clinician-Guided, Customisable Tool for Explaining Fibromyalgia Clearly and Compassionately
Fibromyalgia is common, disabling, and often poorly explained in clinical practice. Many patients leave consultations feeling confused or invalidated, while clinicians struggle to translate modern pain science into clear, compassionate, and hopeful explanations within a limited time. This project aims to develop a clinician-guided, customisable digital tool to help healthcare professionals explain fibromyalgia to their patients during consultations. The tool will adapt explanations to individual patient needs, preferences, and concerns, using plain language, visuals, and evidence-based metaphors, and will naturally lead into positive, personalised discussions about treatment options. During the two-day PainHack, we will co-design and prototype the tool with clinicians, designers, developers, and people with lived experience of fibromyalgia. By the end of the event, we aim to deliver a working prototype, sample explanation pathways, and open-access educational assets that can be shared, adapted, and tested beyond the hackathon.
Leader: Anushka Irani
Putting the Biopsychosocial Model In Practice: Innovative Pain Care in Limited-Resource Settings
Evidence-based chronic pain interventions exist, yet implementation in rural and resource-limited settings remains challenging. This project aims to embed the biopsychosocial model into everyday practice by equipping allied health and other non-physician providers with practical, low-cost tools that fit real-world workflows, while strengthening local leadership in innovative, patient-centered chronic pain care. During the Painhack, the team will co-design and prototype an open, shareable implementation package that supports the adoption of the biopsychosocial approach and the consistent use of contemporary pain science across diverse, constrained environments. Key deliverables include concise education materials with case examples; a biopsychosocial triage and assessment template with decision prompts and care pathway options; a community of practice blueprint to reduce professional isolation and sustain learning; and a feasible evaluation plan to support continuous improvement. All outputs will be usable with common tools (paper, Excel, Teams/Zoom) and released as adaptable templates to enable scalable, equitable chronic pain care in underserved settings.
Leader: Ahmad Qayyum
Co-leader: Elena Lopatina
PAYN: Developing an Ethical Roadmap for Compensation in Experimental Pain Research
PAYN addresses a neglected ethical and methodological gap in experimental pain research: how to compensate participants fairly when studies intentionally induce discomfort. Current practices vary widely and are rarely justified transparently, creating risks of both underpayment and undue inducement. This project will bring together experts to systematically map existing compensation practices, identify ethical constraints, and integrate international guidelines with pain-specific considerations. Using a mini-Delphi consensus approach, the team will define what compensation should cover, what it must never cover, and which safeguards are essential (e.g., pro-rated pay and withdrawal without penalty). On this basis, PAYN will develop a practical, reproducible decision framework that links compensation to measurable dimensions of experimental procedures, recovery burden, and participant vulnerability. The project will deliver a foundation for a publishable theoretical paper, a Compensation Transparency Checklist to support researchers, ethics committees, and open science standards across regulatory and cultural contexts.
Leader: Waclaw Adamczyk
Co-leader: Eleonora Camerone
The Open-source Health Back (Afya Mgongo) Toolkit for Low Back Pain
The toolkit aims to address the physiotherapist shortage in Tanzania (0.1 per 100,000 population) and high out-of-pocket costs for Low Back Pain management in Tanzania. Our goal is to develop a culturally-adapted, open-source digital platform that scales evidence-based care through Swahili-language education and home exercise programs. During the 2-day painhack, the team will prototype a mobile-first application using cross-platform frameworks such as React Native, VS Code, and Flutter. The objectives are:
Curate an open-access library of low-data exercise videos and infographics translated to Swahili.
Build a digital triage and delivery module to reduce fear-avoidance beliefs.
Integrate a secure, anonymous data collection module to initiate Tanzania’s first LBP registry. By the end of the Painhack, the team will produce a functional MVP and a material repository that leverage Tanzania’s mobile penetration to bridge the gap between global guidelines and local clinical practice.
Leader: Simon Ernest
Co-leader: Antidius Rwehumbiza
Screening for Pediatric Chronic Pain in Primary Care
Screening for Pediatric Chronic Pain in Primary Care. There are substantial challenges in the identification of chronic primary pain (CPP) in pediatric populations. Shortage of providers, limited training in pain, and administrative burden in primary care contribute to under-identification, diagnostic and referral delays for children with CPP to receive effective and timely pain care. To address this challenge, Drs. Tonya Palermo and See Wan Tham will collaborate with an interdisciplinary team to establish a consensus-driven and evidence-informed framework for feasible and effective screening of CPP in pediatric primary care settings. The objectives are:
To identify consensus-based domains for primary chronic pain screening (e.g., pain characteristics, psychosocial function, functional impact).
To determine the most effective and feasible screening methods for diverse settings (e.g., patient-reported outcomes versus medical record review).
To develop an implementation framework for integrating screening into routine practice that can be utilized for pilot testing and validation in pediatric primary care settings.
Leader: See Wan Tham
Co-leader: Tonya Palermo
Ethical VR compass for pain management: Safeguarding Immersive Digital Pain Therapies
Ethical VR Compass for Pain Management aims to improve patient safety and well-being as virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used for pain treatment. While VR shows promise as a non-opioid intervention, there is limited transparency about the immersive content patients experience and how this may affect their physical, psychological, and emotional health. This project seeks to address this gap by developing an open-access Ethical VR Compass—a practical toolkit to evaluate the safety, inclusivity, and ethical readiness of VR pain interventions. Over the 2-day onsite Painhack event, an interdisciplinary team will co-create a prototype evaluation dashboard and structured checklist, applying it to various VR pain-therapy scenarios. The project aims to support responsible VR adoption in pain care and future research.
Leader: Irene Mburu
Painhack Registration Rates
Painhack: Project Track
25 - 26 October
The Painhack Project Track will feature 10 projects. Projects are pain-related and interdisciplinary by nature and will uphold the highest possible standards of open science.
Over the course of two days, participants will meet and work together under the guidance of their team leader, who submitted the project. To facilitate this collaborative work, each team will have access to a Github Repository and a Discord Channel. These resources will remain available after the World Congress to support further collaboration if appropriate.
Anyone can register to attend the project track regardless of their background, career stage, or demographics. The Project track includes two registration options, one for trainees and one for non-trainees, with a maximum of 25 seats in each.
All prices listed are in U.S. Dollars.
Painhack: Early Career Professional Development Track
25 October
Early career researchers and clinicians will join a series of seminars and workshops dedicated to advancing their professional skills under the guidance of international mentors.
This program will include three main modules, focusing on the successful management of interdisciplinary research projects. The topic of each module and speakers will be announced soon.
The Early Career Professional Development Track is reserved for trainees or early-career professionals (up to 5 years after completing their student or fellowship training).
All Painhack-registered attendees are required to register for the World Congress.
All prices listed are in U.S. Dollars.