Dr Caitlin Jones Winner of the Research Australia Discovery Award!
The Research Australia’s ‘Discovery Award’, which recognises an early career researcher whose paper, patent or discovery has already demonstrated its importance or impact.
Caitlin was nominated for this role for the role she played as a PhD student on the OPAL trial. OPAL, published in The Lancet in 2023, was the world’s first RCT testing an opioid against a placebo for people with acute back or neck pain. We found that the opioid (oxycodone with naloxone) conferred no benefits above placebo in the short term, and led to worse pain, function and mental health in the long term, as well as a higher risk of opioid misuse. This is important because low back and neck pain are two of the most common conditions globally, and opioids are the most common pain medicine prescribed for it. The new knowledge that this opioid may not only be not helpful, but potentially harmful, is impacting clinical guidance internationally. For example, the World Health Organisation has released clinical guidelines that recommend against opioids for chronic low back pain citing OPAL as the primary evidence for this. OPAL has also been cited in US state and federal policy aiming to reduce harm from opioid overuse.
Although the purpose of the award was to highlight the contributions of an early career researcher, it really speaks to the great work from the entire team which included researchers, professional staff, and clinicians, especially Professor Christine Lin who was the senior author.
The team members include Caitlin M P Jones, PhD ∙ Prof Richard O Day, MD ∙ Prof Bart W Koes, PhD ∙ Prof Jane Latimer, PhD ∙ Prof Chris G Maher, DMedSc ∙ Prof Andrew J McLachlan, PhD ∙ Prof Laurent Billot, MRes ∙ Sana Shan, MSc ∙ Prof Chung-Wei Christine Lin, PhD