Pain is a very important public health problem, as it is the most common reason for people to seek medical attention. Yet, the treatment of many types of pain, particularly chronic pain, is not satisfactory. Furthermore, chronic pain frequently leads to psychological problems, severely affecting the patients’ quality of life. Another significant consequence of pain is a severe reduction in productivity which then leads to a huge economic burden on society. The main reason for treatment failure in chronic pain is our incomplete understanding of the mechanisms that cause and/or maintain chronic pain. In addition, there is a need to improve the translation of basic pain research discoveries into clinical advances.

We established the Gulf Coast Cluster for Translational Pain Research (GCCL TPR) to promote collaborations between a large number of excellent pain researchers scattered among several different institutions in the Galveston-Houston area. The goals of the GCCL TPR are: 1) to enhance research collaborations between clinical and basic scientists as well as between researchers at different institutions in the Gulf Coast Region, and 2) to provide broadened training opportunities in translational pain research and to encouraging collaborations between basic and clinical scientists.