Chronic pain is a major unsolved medical,economical and societal problem,because pain chronicity is so common,affecting about one out of 4 adults worldwide,and current treatments provide only partial relief that is traded off by side-effects.New treatments are needed.It is now possible to use genetic approaches that have been developed in the Genome Project to identify targets for the development of the next generation of painkillers,and to revolutionize pain medicine in ways that will be described in my presentation.