PainLAB says KONICHIWA: The IASP Meeting in Yokohama
The world’s top researchers and clinicians met in Yokohama to provide state-of-the-art learning opportunities on a wide array of topics in pain research and treatment. The IASP Meeting in Yokohama, Japan held from Sept 26th to Sept 30th attracted more than 4400 participants! PainLab were also there!
Starting with an impressive Welcome Reception on Monday in the Pacifico Convention Center the conference continued with excellent plenary lectures and interesting topical workshops on various aspects of pain, both from clinical and preclinical studies. Nevertheless, lectures were outnumbered by posters, of which around 500 were presented every day during poster sessions filled with scientific discussions.
PainLab presented three posters: Natalia presented on the importance of peripheral input to the development of neuropathic features of OA pain, Magda’s results concerned involvement of CB2 receptor in the development of OA as well as targeting it as a novel approach to treat OA related pain, while Jakub and Natalia shared their latest “hands on” remarks about the unique KWB apparatus. Huge interest in the equipment resulted in a very busy hour for Natalia in front of the poster. We also took advantage of the opportunity to communicate directly with Bioseb’s friendly staff, Anne Desevre.
At the exhibition area we also took a close look at the latest discoveries of Ugo Basile. Their Hot-Cold plate was improved thanks to some of our remarks! We do hope to have a chance to try the new Hot-Cold plate in the near future. We also stopped by the IASP booth to purchase some books.
Because of our interest in osteoarthritis related pain we highly appreciated both the topical workshop “Pain in the Joints” hosted by Lars Arendt-Nielsen and Serge Perrot as well as Arendt-Nielsen’s plenary lecture who introduced better understanding of the individual factors and fundamental mechanisms to improve patient profiling, help individualizing management, suggest new treatment options and thereby advance development of new therapies.
Other sessions, although not focused on OA pain, were also highly interesting, therefore we tried to split-up during parallel sessions to cover a wider range of the novel results in the world of pain studies being presented
For those of you who follow our posts there’s no need to remind you that currently Natalia is doing her internship (as a part of ETIUDA program) in the Wolfson’s CARD of King’s College London with prof. McMahon. Therefore, we were more than happy to hear Stephen McMahon was honored with the John J. Bonica Distinguished Award and delivered the John J. Bonica Distinguished Lecture „Why me? Neurobiological Mechanisms of Pain Vulnerability”. Despite the lecture taking place at 8:15 am the National Convention Hall was full. We warmly congratulate Steve on this Award!
These intense 5 days passed in the blink of an eye! Full of interesting lectures, lunch-time discussions about the research with friends and off-site scientific conferences. We came back to Poland impressed by Japan’s unique culture, service(polite and diligent), trains, cuisine (it’s not just sushi), onsen (Japanese hot spring baths) and …karaoke!
