ECTS Career Establishment Award
2008 Award Announcement
The 2009 grant applications are now closed.
The 2010 awards will be announced in June 2009.
Description: The ECTS
Career Establishment Award is intended to assist newly-appointed
faculty members in launching a successful research career.
The purpose of these grants of up to 50,000 Euro (over
2-3 years) is:
- to help meet some of the immediate costs of initiating
research
- to support and stimulate research on calcified
tissues and related topics
- to serve as a recruitment tool to assist in attracting
young researchers to the ECTS
Eligibility: Candidates must fulfil
the following criteria
- must be a member of ECTS
- must be within 3 years of being appointed to their
first faculty position as an independent researcher
within a European Academic Research Institution
- must be working in an area of research relevant
to the aims of the ECTS
- previous recipients of an ECTS Career Establishment,
PhD Studentship, Postdoctoral Fellowship or Amgen
Research Fellowship awards are not eligible to apply
Review Procedure
All applications are reviewed by an
independent panel of reviewers
and any conflicts of interest are identified and dealt
with appropriately.
The final decision is based on the marks and comments
from the reviewers and any conflicts of interest are
identified and dealt with appropriately.
Report: Successful applicants will
be required to:
- submit a written report on the progress of their
research at the end of the grant period
- present a lecture during the European Symposium
on Calcified Tissues as an invited speaker
- write a review article for Calcified Tissue
International (the official journal of the ECTS)
The final instalment of the grant will be payable
on receipt of the written report.
2008 Award
Two ECTS Career Establishment
Awards were presented on Monday 26 May to Dr
Frank de Vries from the Universiteit Utrecht,
Netherlands and Dr Julie Crockett from
the University of Aberdeen, UK.

Full Sized Image (200k)
2008 award winners Julie
Crocket and Frank de Vries with 2007 winner Miep Helfrich
Dr de Vries will be working on a project entitled “Absolute
Risk of Fracture in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis:
a Population-Based Cohort Study in the United Kingdom,
Denmark and the Netherlands”
ABSTRACT
ECTS Career Establishment Award - Dr Frank
de Vries
Multiple sclerosis MS is a chronic, inflammatory, demyelinating
disease that affects the central nervous system CNS.
Disease onset usually occurs in young adults, typically
aged between 20 and 40 years, and is more common in
women than in men. It affects about 2.5 million people
worldwide. Patients with MS are increased risk of osteoporotic
fracture due to instability, immobility and osteoporosis.
Dutch data on file showed a significantly 5-fold increased
risk of hip fracture. Furthermore, a substantial number
of MS patients are being treated with systemic corticosteroids,
which is a known risk factor for risk of fracture.
However, from a clinical point of view, it is currently
unclear when, and in which patients with MS, fracture-preventing
strategies should be initiated. Therefore, aim of this
study is to estimate the absolute 5-years or 10-years
risk of fracture in probably the World’s largest
sample of over 32,000 MS patients, stratified by corticosteroid
exposure.
Dr Crocket will be working on “CYR61: a novel
osteoblast-derived inhibitor of osteoclast formation?”
ABSTRACT
ECTS Career Establishment Award - Dr Julie
Crockett
We have recently found that CYR61, a member of the
CCN family of proteins and secreted by osteoblasts,
is a novel inhibitor of osteoclast formation in vitro.
Bone-resorbing osteoclasts are formed by the differentiation
and fusion of cells of the macrophage/monocyte lineage
to form TRAP-positive, multinucleated cells. We have
shown that, while osteoblasts express CYR61, osteoclasts
and osteoclast precursors do not. The aim of this study
is to determine whether osteoblast-derived CYR61 inhibits
osteoclast formation in calvarial organ cultures and
in co-culture assays of osteoblasts with bone marrow
cells, using both overexpression and knockdown approaches.
We will also make an expression construct for the generation
of a transgenic mouse model to investigate the role
of CYR61 in bone in vivo and will establish a programme
of research aimed at elucidating the possible involvement
of the CCN family of proteins in diseases such as osteoarthritis.
Previous award winners
2007 Award
ECTS is delighted to announce the winner
of the 2007 award which was presented on 7 May 2007
during the 34th European Symposium on Calcified Tissues
in Copenhagen, Denmark, to Dr Marcel Karperien from
the University of Twente, The Netherlands. Dr Karperien
will be working on a project researching the role of
genes in bone formation which could have the potential
to lead to a new treatment aimed at repairing cartilage
tissue.
2006 Robert
van ‘t Hof (Edinburgh, UK)
2005 Miep Helfrich
(Aberdeen, UK)
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