Published: 23-06-2025 17:04 | Updated: 23-06-2025 18:47

2024 IBSA Foundation Fellowship to pain researcher in the Hadjab Lab

The research team behind the study (from left) Xiaona Feng, Kaiwen Xhan, Saida Hadjab and Prach Techameena at Hadjab Lab.
Members of the Hadjab lab (from left): Xiaona Feng, Kaiwen Xhan, Saida Hadjab and Prach Techameena. Photo: Linnea Bengtsson.

Prach Techameena, PhD student at the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, has been awarded a research fellowship from the IBSA Foundation for scientific research. The project, in the category of pain medicine/ orthopaedics/ rheumatology, was one of six selected globally in the 12th edition of the IBSA Foundation Fellowships.

Portrait of Prach Techameena, taken at the Award Ceremony of the 12th edition of the IBSA Foundation Fellowships, in Milan.
Prach Techameena at the Award Ceremony of the 12th edition of the IBSA Foundation Fellowships. Photo: IBSA Foundation

The fellowships are aimed at early-career researchers under the age of 40 and support innovative projects in five medical fields: dermatology, endocrinology, fertility, pain medicine/orthopaedics/rheumatology, and ophthalmology. This year, close to 260 applications were submitted from researchers in 45 countries. The six winning projects were selected by an international scientific committee based on their scientific merit and potential.

Prach Techameena is part of the Neurobiology of Pain & Therapeutics research group, led by Saida Hadjab at the Department of Neuroscience. His ongoing doctoral work focuses on pain mechanisms. Among other, he is co–first author of a project investigating the role of nociceptor senescence in chronic pain (The single-cell transcriptomic atlas iPain identifies senescence of nociceptors as a therapeutical target for chronic pain treatment).

Each fellowship is worth €32,000 and is intended to support the continuation of the awarded research. The other recipients are based at institutions in Italy, Switzerland, the United States and the United Kingdom.

The Award Ceremony of the 12th edition of the IBSA Foundation Fellowship was held in Milan, during which the 2025 call was also officially opened.