Treatment Development
treatment development
NEW TREATMENTS FOR PAIN: Unmet needs and how to meet them
“Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes.- George Orwell, ‘1984’ " "Neuroscience has revealed the secrets of the brain and nervous system to an extent that was beyond the realm of imagination just 10-20 years ago, let alone in 1949 when Orwell wrote his prophetic novel. Understanding pain, however, presents a unique challenge to academia, industry and medicine, being both a measurable physiological process as well as deeply personal and subjective. Given the millions of people who suffer from pain every day, wishing only, “that it should stop”, the need to find more effective treatments cannot be understated." "‘New treatments for pain’ will bring together approximately 120 people from the commercial, academic, and not-for-profit sectors to share current knowledge, identify future directions, and enable collaboration, providing delegates with meaningful and practical ways to accelerate their own work into developing treatments for pain.
Hughlings Jackson Lecture: Making Progress in Progressive MS – the Ultimate Challenge!
On April 22, 2021, Dr. Alan J Thompson of the University College London and the UCL Institute of Neurology, London, UK will deliver the Hughlings Jackson Lecture entitled, “Making Progress in Progressive MS – the Ultimate Challenge!” Established in 1935, the Hughlings Jackson Lecture is The Neuro’s premier scientific lecture. It honors the legacy of British neurologist John Hughlings Jackson (1835-1911) who pioneered the development of neurology as a medical specialty. Talk Abstract : The international focus on progressive MS, driven by the Progressive MS Alliance amongst others, together with recent encouraging results from clinical trials have raised the profile and emphasised the importance of understanding, treating and ultimately preventing progression in MS. Effective treatment for Progressive MS is now regarded as the single most important issue facing the MS community. There are several important challenges to developing new treatments for progressive MS. Fundamental to any development in treatment is a better understanding of the mechanisms of tissue injury underpinning progression which will in turn allow the identification of new targets against which treatments can be directed. There are additional complications in determining when progression actually starts, determining the impact of aging and defining the progressive clinical phenotypes – an area which has become increasingly complex in recent months. Evaluating potential new treatments in progressive MS also poses particular challenges including trial design and the selection of appropriate clinical and imaging outcomes - in particular, identifying an imaging biomarker for phase II trials of progressive MS. Despite these challenges, considerable progress is being made in developing new treatments targeting the innate immune system and exploring neuroprotective strategies. Further advances are being driven by a number of international networks, funded by the Progressive MS Alliance. Overall we are seeing encouraging progress as a result of co-ordinated global collaboration which offers real possibilities for truly effective treatment of progression.
Biomarkers for Addiction Treatment Development: fMRI Drug Cue Reactivity as an Example
This webinar is mainly focused on “Biomarkers for Addiction Treatment Development: fMRI Drug Cue Reactivity as an Example”. Biomarkers and Biotypes of Drug Addiction: funding opportunities at NIDA, Tanya Ramey (NIDA, US) Neuroimaging-based Biomarker Development for Clinical Trials, Owen Carmicheal (Pennington Biomedical Research Center, USA) ENIGMA-Addiction Cue Reactivity Initiative (ACRI) and Checklist, Hamed Ekhtiari (Laureate Institute for Brain Research, USA) ENIGMA-ACRI Checklist: Participant Characteristics, General fMRI Information, General Task Information, Cue Information, Task-related Assessments, Pre-Post Scanning Consideration (James Prisciandaro, Medical University of South Carolina, USA; Marc Kaufman, McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School, USA; Anna Zilverstand, University of Minnesota; Torsten Wüstenberg, Charité Medical University Berlin, Germany; Falk Kiefer, University of Heidelberg, Germany; Amy Janes, Harvard Medical School, USA) How to Add fMRI Drug Cue Reactivity to the ENIGMA Consortium: Road Ahead, Hugh Garavan, University of Vermont)