On the occasion of Migraine Awareness Week 2019, we’ve invited Martina Guglielmetti, resident in Internal Medicine at the University of Sassari and junior headache researcher, to tell us more about the so called ‘disease modifying migraine drugs’ and their mode of action. For more details on this topic and on recent advances in migraine treatment, read The Journal of Headache and Pain’s current thematic series ‘The changing face of migraine’.