The personal, societal and economic costs of low back pain are enormous, and the likelihood of being disabled by back pain has worsened in recent decades. Prof Helena Lenihan, Chair of the UL Research Impact Committee is joined by Dr Kieran O’Sullivan, Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy, School of Allied Health and winner of the President’s Research Excellence and Impact Early Career Award. Dr O’Sullivan’s research has shed new light on why back pain is such an ongoing challenge and the tendency for back pain to be treated as an almost entirely ‘physical’ issue – where we rely too much on tests such as MRI scans, at the expense of treating the whole human. His research has led to the development and testing of novel solutions for the treatment of back pain.