Professor Andreas Goebel MSc (Pain Medicine) PhD FRCA FFPMRCA

Personal Statement

I completed training in anaesthesia, pain medicine, and post-trauma immunology in Germany, USA, and UK (Oxford/UCLH) and was in 2007 appointed Consultant in Pain Medicine at the Liverpool Walton Centre. From 2008 I have worked as Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor), then Reader in Pain Medicine at the University of Liverpool (since 2023 Chair of Pain Medicine), with 50% clinical work in pain-outpatients, pain management program, and pain theatres.

My research has focused on understanding the role of the adaptive immune system in causing severe 'unexplained' chronic pain. I have first developed the concept of autoantibody-pain and the use of passive transfer models to explore this in patients, focussing with my studies on Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), and Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS).

I am investigating the effects of immune-modulating treatments in these pains and have led a team that has developed novel recruitment approaches for drug trials in pain medicine.

Chair:
- UK interdisciplinary CRPS Guidelines Group, under the umbrella of the Royal College of Physicians (RCP)
- RCP UK Guidelines Group on Fibromyalgia-Diagnosis
- Research Committee of the British Pain Society
- European Pain Federation’s Task Force on CRPS
- Special Interest Group CRPS within the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP).

I am Director or the Liverpool Pain Research Institute, a cross-departmental Institute within the University of Liverpool, which supports and networks researchers in Pain Medicine in Liverpool and North-West UK, supported by the Liverpool Pain Relief Foundation, a Pain Research Charity https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/pain-research-institute; I am keen to assist clinicians that wish to develop a research career in pain medicine.

Prizes or Honours

• 1st Faculty of Health And Life Sciences PPI Award (University of Liverpool, 2019)