Pain Day at McGill University thankfully doesn't live up to its name. About 75 pain researchers, from McGill's Centre for Research on Pain and the surrounding area came together in January for the ninth annual Pain Day, a chance for Montreal's burgeoning pain research community to schmooze, share results, and hatch collaborations. McGill, already famous as the home of the gate-control theory co-founder, Ronald Melzack, has significantly upped its pain-related efforts in the past few years. Coupled with increasingly research-friendly policies in the country, the institution has begun to see a reversal of the drain on Canadian talent that was so noticeable little more than a decade ago. The university recruited researchers within Canada as well as from Spain, Israel, and the United States. The Quebec Pain Research Initiative (QPRI) was launched in 2000 in an attempt to coordinate pain research efforts throughout the province. And in January 2003, McGill formally created the Centre for Research on Pain, naming Catherine Bushnell the first director. The center now includes 30 full and 17 associate members, some of whom double as QPRI members.