Esther Pogatzki-Zahn

Curriculum Vitae

Esther Pogatzki-Zahn (EPZ) is an MD since 1996, did neuroscience training in the US (1998-2003) and is currently a Professor in the Department of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain Medicine, University Hospital Muenster/ WWU, Germany, where she works as a pain specialist (head of pain service) and PI of the “Translational Pain Research Group”. Her research is aiming to provide insight into the neuropathology of postsurgical, pelvic, chronic inflammatory, neuropathic and cancer-related pain by using basic science in-vivo behavioral, electrophysiological, omics, optogenetic, fMRI and molecular methods as well as human translational pain studies. Furthermore, she performs clinical pain-related studies encompassing a bio-psycho-social spectrum related to the pain entities mentioned above and is involved as a PI or Co-PI in many international multicenter projects, for example IMI-PainCare (www.imi-paincare.eu/), PANDOS (www.esaic.org/research/research-groups/pandos/), POET-Pain (https://www.poet-pain.de), IT-Pain (https://itpain.org/), ENTRUST-Pain and CHIELDPAIN. She performs systematic reviews and meta-analysis related to pain, regional anesthesia and perioperative medicine (pre-clinical and clinical) including methods to improve their methodology/design. Her recent work encompasses as well the field of Core Outcome Sets in pain and anesthesia, for example within INTEGRATE () and IMI-PainCare, among others. Currently, her research is supported by grants from the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) and the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 (IMI). She is council member of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), board member of the German Pain Society, board member of the Acute Pain SIG of the IASP, past chair of the subcommittee “Acute and Chronic Pain and Palliative Medicine Pain Management” of ESAIC, member of the research committee of the ESAIC and member of the European Society of Regional Anaesthesia & Pain Therapy (ESRA) PROSPECT group (https://esraeurope.org/pain-management/) and chair of the European Pain Federation (EFIC) Research Group and member of the Pain, Palliative and Supportive (PAPAS) Cochrane Group (https://papas.cochrane.org/). She is Deputy Editor in Chief for the EJA and EJAIC, section editor for the EJP and reviewer for many international peer review journals. She published more than 150 original peer reviewed manuscripts, 50 review articles/ editorials, 16 Book chapters and 3 books (h-Index: 53).

Selected references:

Pogatzki-Zahn EM, Segelcke D. Searching for the rainbow: biomarkers relevant for chronic postsurgical pain. Pain. 2023 Sep 13. doi: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000003043. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37703400.

Segelcke D, van der Burgt M, Kappert C, Schmidt Garcia D, Sondermann JR, Bigalke S, Pradier B, Gomez-Varela D, Zahn PK, Schmidt M, Pogatzki-Zahn EM. Phenotype- and species-specific skin proteomic signatures for incision-induced pain in humans and mice. Br J Anaesth 2023;130(3):331–42. 10.1016/j.bja.2022.10.040.

Hohenschurz-Schmidt D, Vase L, Scott W, Annoni M, Ajayi OK, Barth J, Bennell K, Berna C, Bialosky J, Braithwaite F, Finnerup NB, Williams ACC, Carlino E, Cerritelli F, Chaibi A, Cherkin D, Colloca L, Côté P, Darnall BD, Evans R, Fabre L, Faria V, French S, Gerger H, Häuser W, Hinman RS, Ho D, Janssens T, Jensen K, Johnston C, Juhl Lunde S, Keefe F, Kerns RD, Koechlin H, Kongsted A, Michener LA, Moerman DE, Musial F, Newell D, Nicholas M, Palermo TM, Palermo S, Peerdeman KJ, Pogatzki-Zahn EM, Puhl AA, Roberts L, Rossettini G, Tomczak Matthiesen S, Underwood M, Vaucher P, Vollert J, Wartolowska K, Weimer K, Werner CP, Rice ASC, Draper-Rodi J. Recommendations for the development, implementation, and reporting of control interventions in efficacy and mechanistic trials of physical, psychological, and self-management therapies: the CoPPS Statement. BMJ. 2023(25);381:e072108. doi: 10.1136/bmj-2022-072108. PMID: 37230508.

Pogatzki-Zahn EM, Liedgens H, Hummelshoj L, Meissner W, Weinmann C, Treede RD, Vincent K, Zahn P, Kaiser U; IMI-PainCare PROMPT consensus panel. Developing consensus on core outcome domains for assessing effectiveness in perioperative pain management: results of the PROMPT/IMI-PainCare Delphi Meeting. Pain. 2021 Nov 1;162(11):2717-2736. doi: 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000002254. PMID: 34181367.

Pogatzki-Zahn EM, Gomez-Varela D, Erdmann G, Kaschube K, Segelcke D, Schmidt M. A proteome signature for acute incisional pain in dorsal root ganglia of mice. Pain 2021;162(7):2070–86. 10.1097/j.pain.0000000000002207.

Mouraux A, Bannister K, Becker S, Finn DP, Pickering G, Pogatzki-Zahn E, Graven-Nielsen T. Challenges and opportunities in translational pain research - An opinion paper of the working group on translational pain research of the European pain federation (EFIC). Eur J Pain. 2021;25(4):731-756. doi: 10.1002/ejp.1730. Epub 2021 Feb 24. PMID: 33625769; PMCID: PMC9290702.