A Research Grant funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)
Research Overview
The EPIONE program is a 6-year EPSRC-funded programme grant focusing on the design of new engineering technologies for chronic pain, commencing October 2025. It brings together an ambitious programme of research that involves multiple teams working together developing fundamentally new technologies to treat chronic pain, with a core focus on implantable and non-invasive brain stimulation and modulation systems.
The programme addresses the ongoing challenge of chronic pain. At least 8% of the UK population suffer from moderate or severe chronic pain, and current therapies such as drugs have proved far less effective than hoped. This creates one of the greatest current unmet clinical needs in healthcare, with an extraordinarily large social and economic burden. The programme team combine expertise in the development of novel technologies to modulate brain information processing, with a detailed neuroscientific understanding of how computational circuits mediate the perception of persistent pain. They work together with patients/carers, clinicians, NHS stakeholders, and industry partners, with a shared vision to develop a new generation of transformational technologies specifically targetting pain circuits.
The program covers several core sub-topics:
- Novel bioelectronic deep-brain stimulation systems
- Implantable drug-delivery systems
- Novel transcranial ultrasound systems
- Neurofeedback technologies
- Computational neuroengineering
- Systems engineering
The programme is led by Tim Denison in Engineering Science and Ben Seymour in Clinical Neuroscience, alongside Robin Cleveland, Chris Procter, Rachel Crockett and Wako Yoshida at Oxford; Flavia Mancini at Cambridge University; Liam Browne at UCL; and Alexandra Vuckovic at Glasgow University.
Collaborators: UCL, University of Glasgow, University of Cambridge
This research is funded by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) Research Grant Scheme under the reference number UKRI1970.
