Saida Hadjab

Professional Overview Current Position

• Senior Researcher and Principal Investigator (Group Leader)
  Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

• Chair of KI Pain Network 2025 KI Pain Network | Karolinska Institutet

 Main Research Interests

• Neural stem cells
• Neuronal development and diversification
• Chronic pain and headache disorders
• Cognitive and behavioral output changes with chronic pain
• Pluripotency and transcriptional regulation
• Neurological disorders

• Senescence
• Drug development

 Previous Research Appointments

• Senior Researcher 

Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, Francois Lallemend Laboratory, Karolinska Institutet Lallemend Laboratory

• Researcher
  Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. Francois Lallemend Laboratory, Karolinska Institutet Lallemend Laboratory
• Post-doctoral Fellow / Researcher
  Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Molecular Neurobiology Unit, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden,  Francois Lallemend Laboratory, Karolinska Institutet Lallemend Laboratory
• Post-doctoral Fellow

Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, Björn Vennström Laboratory, Karolinska Institutet Björn Vennström, Professor Emeritus

• Post-doctoral Fellow
  GIGA Neuroscience, Belgium,  Brigitte Malgrange Laboratory GIGA Neuroscience, Belgium GIGA Neuroscience profile

  Education

• PhD in Neuroscience

Aix-Marseille University, France Doctor Philippe Siaud and University of Tübingen,  Germany (Marie Curie Fellowship),  Marlies Knipper, Universität Tübingen Knipper Lab

• Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience
  Aix-Marseille University, France

Leadership Roles

• Chair of the KI Pain Network (composed of 25 faculties and 151 members), Karolinska Institutet.
  Leading efforts to advance research, education, and collaboration in pain science. This role includes coordinate cross-disciplinary initiatives, organize symposia, and foster connections between researchers, clinicians, and patient organizations to bridge scientific research with patient needs.

• Research Group Leader, Karolinska Institutet, Biomedicum.

The Hadjab Laboratory:

• Bridges the classical view of pain with its cognitive and affective consequences, aiming to define how lasting pain drives behavioral change by mapping the underlying circuits and cellular–molecular mechanisms.
• Identifies epigenetic changes associated with an active lifestyle compared to sedentary conditions and how these states modulate pain.
• Identifies new roles for nociceptors within nerve tracts through deep sequencing, revealing an unprecedented, evolutionarily conserved small-molecule system in pain-sensing neurons.
• Advances a research program built on the laboratory’s discovery of senescence as a novel target for pain treatment.
• Develop next-generation pain therapeutics, supported by Novo Nordisk.
• Works in close dialogue with patient-representative organizations to ensure clinical relevance and impact.

1. Workshops and Course-Based Teaching
• Workshop: Nervous System (Neuroanatomy & Histology)
• Course: Basvetenskapligt Projektarbete, Basvetenskap 5 (Läkarprogrammet)
• Acid–Base Physiology Course: lectures and workshops across the academic year

2. Examination and Research Project Teaching
• Examiner for Experimental Research Project Course (Biomedical Master)
• Supervision and evaluation of Junior Research Project (Biomedicine Master Programme)
• Long-term supervision within Frontiers in Biomedicine and Research Project courses
• Assessment and grading of Bachelor and Master student research projects
• Evaluation of multiple written reports and oral presentations
• Chair of PhD student disputations
• Member of PhD halftime committee