Invited Speaker Biographical Notes

Gregor Adams (Los Angeles, USA)

Gregor Adams, PhD obtained a BSc in Molecular Biology from the University of Edinburgh, UK and his PhD from Imperial College School of Medicine in London, UK. He performed his post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr David Scadden at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA. Here his research emphasis was on the interaction of the hematopoietic stem cells with their microenvironmental niche. He co-authored seminal work describing the role of the osteoblast as a key component of the bone marrow stem cell niche, and followed this up by identifying signalling pathways involved in stem cell-niche biology and methods to enhance stem cell-niche interactions. Currently, Dr Adams is an Assistant Professor in the Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of Southern California. His research program is still focused on the hematopoietic stem cell niche in the bone marrow, in particular identifying the components of the hematopoietic stem cell niche and elucidating the signalling pathways involved in niche-mediated stem cell self-renewal.

Faisal Ahmed (Glasgow, Scotland)

Professor Faisal Ahmed graduated from the University of Edinburgh and trained primarily at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh and Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge. Currently, he is Professor of Developmental Endocrinology in the Section of Child Health in the Division of Developmental Medicine at the University of Glasgow. He is also Consultant in Paediatric Endocrinology and Bone Metabolism at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Yorkhill, Glasgow and the clinical lead for Children’s Services R&D for Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board. Professor Ahmed leads the Bone and Endocrine Research Group which is involved in a range of research related to skeletal growth and development. In addition, he is the clinical lead for a comprehensive, multimodality bone densitometry service and a multidisciplinary paediatric metabolic bone service dedicated for children across Scotland.

Ashok Bhalla (Bath, UK)

Dr Ashok Bhalla graduated from the University of Manchester in 1977 and undertook metabolic bone disease training with Professor O’Riordan at the Middlesex Hospital followed by a three year Fellowship at the Massachusett’s General Hospital under the tutelage of Professor Stephen Krane. He completed his rheumatology training on his return to the United Kingdom, and was appointed as Consultant in Rheumatology with a special interest in metabolic bone disease at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases in Bath in l988. Dr Bhalla’s research has included the identification of receptors for 1-25 dihydroxyvitaminD in human monocytes, activated lymphocytes, chondrocytes and effects of the active metabolite on Vitamin D as a novel immunosuppressant. He was involved in the epidemiological studies for EVOS and EPOS and recently has worked on the occurrence of osteoporosis in inflammatory bowel disease, Coeliac Disease, ankylosing spondylitis and rheumatoid arthritis. In conjunction with Professor Cyrus Cooper, he has studied the relationship between childhood growth, lifestyle and peak bone mass in women. Dr Bhalla is currently investigating the role of bisphosphonates as potential disease modifiers in ankylosing spondylitis. He is a member of the ASBMR and regularly peer reviews grants and research articles. He holds grants from the ARC, Wellcome Trust, Coeliac Society and the Dunhill Medical Trust. More recently, with funding from the Dunhill Medical Trust, in conjunction with the University of Oxford, Dr Bhalla helped develop an osteoporosis module for patients at www.healthtalkonline.org.

Shalender Bhasin (Boston, USA)

Dr Bhasin is a Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine, and Chief of the Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Nutrition at Boston Medical Center. He serves as the Director of the NIA-funded Boston Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center for Function Promoting Therapies. Dr Bhasin obtained his medical education at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, India. He subsequently received his residency training at Northwestern University Medical School and fellowship training in Endocrinology and Nutrition at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA. Dr Bhasin is an internationally recognized endocrinologist with expertise in function promoting anabolic therapies, androgen biology and clinical trials of testosterone. He chaired the Endocrine Society’s expert panel for the development of guidelines for testosterone therapy. He serves as the Chair of the Endocrine Society’s Clinical Guidelines Subcommittee and as a member of the American Board of Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism Subspecialty Examination. His laboratory provided the first unequivocal evidence of the anabolic effects of androgens in humans, demonstrated that androgens regulate differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells, and invoked the activation of Wnt target genes through beta-catenin-TCF-4 pathway. He is a translational researcher, supported by several NIH-funded grants for over 20 years, and has been the recipient of numerous teaching and research awards.

Paolo Bianco (Rome, Italy)

Paolo Bianco is Professor of Pathology and Director, Anatomic Pathology, at Sapienza Universita’ di Roma, Italy and Chief, Stem Cell Laboratory at San Raffaele Biomedical Science Park of Rome. He works on skeletal diseases and on non-hematopoietic stem cells found in the bone marrow stroma. His earlier work focused among other things on the crucial role of stem cell for modeling genetic diseases of the skeleton, in particular fibrous dysplasia (FD, OMIM#174800), in vitro and in vivo. These studies provided significant advances in the understanding of the disease pathogenesis. His more recent work is directed at identifying and characterizing postnatal progenitors in the human bone marrow and skeletal muscle as subendothelial cells (see Sacchetti et al, Cell 2007, Dellavalle et al Nature Cell Biology 2007, Bianco et al Cell Stem Cell 2008), and on their subsequent use in i) genomic studies of the phenotype-genotype correlation in FD, ii) preclinical models of cell therapy and gene therapy both in vitro and in ad hoc generated murine models of disease, iii) models of cell therapy in bone and skeletal muscle diseases. Dr Bianco has published over 130 peer-reviewed articles.

Juliet Compston (Cambridge, UK)

Juliet Compston is Professor of Bone Medicine and Honorary Consultant Physician at the University of Cambridge, School of Clinical Medicine, a position she took up in 2003. Her research is focused on the pathophysiology of osteoporosis and the cellular and structural mechanisms by which pharmacological interventions preserve bone mass and reduce fracture risk. She has conducted studies into the pathophysiology of bone disease in a number of disorders, including postmenopausal osteoporosis, post-transplantation osteoporosis and cystic fibrosis. Professor Compston is a past President of the Bone and Tooth Society of Great Britain, as well as a past Chairman and President of the International Society of Bone Morphometry. She is currently a member of the Board of the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) and its Committee of Scientific Advisors, and a Trustee of the Medical Board of the National Osteoporosis Society. She is Chair of the European Union Osteoporosis Consultation Panel and of the UK National Osteoporosis Guidelines Group. Professor Compston is Associate Editor of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research and a member of the Editorial Board of several peer-reviewed journals including Bone, Osteoporosis International, Calcified Tissue International and the Journal of Clinical Densitometry. She has published over 250 original research papers and reviews. In 2006, Professor Compston was awarded the National Osteoporosis Society Kohn Foundation Award, and in 2009, the International Bone and Mineral Society John G Haddad Jr Award and the ASBMR Frederic C Bartter Award.

Cyrus Cooper (Southampton and Oxford, UK)

Cyrus Cooper is Professor of Rheumatology and Director of the MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre at the University of Southampton, and Norman Collisson Chair of Musculoskeletal Science at the University of Oxford. He leads an internationally competitive programme of research into the epidemiology of musculoskeletal disorders, most notably osteoporosis. His key research contributions have been: 1) discovery of the developmental influences which contribute to the risk of osteoporosis and hip fracture in late adulthood; 2) demonstration that maternal vitamin D insufficiency is associated with sub-optimal bone mineral accrual in childhood; 3) characterisation of the definition and incidence rates of vertebral fractures; 4) leadership of large pragmatic randomised controlled trials of calcium and vitamin D supplementation in the elderly as immediate preventative strategies against hip fracture. He is currently President of the Bone Research Society of Great Britain, and Chairman of the Committee of Scientific Advisors, International Osteoporosis Foundation. He has published extensively with over 350 publications on osteoporosis and rheumatic disorders and has pioneered clinical studies on the developmental origins of peak bone mass.

Marc de la Roche (Cambridge, UK)

Marc de la Roche hails from Canada where he received his PhD from Queen’s University, studying the role of p21-activated kinases in cellular motility. He moved to the MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 2005 where he joined the group of Mariann Bienz as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Here he studied the assembly and activation of a protein complex driving Wnt target gene expression, the penultimate step in this signalling pathway. His current focus is the identification of novel regulatory sites within the oncogenic form of the Wnt signalling cascade as targets for the development of small molecule inhibitors. The identification and characterisation of a novel small molecule inhibitor of oncogenic Wnt signalling will be the subject of his workshop lecture.

Paola Divieti Pajevic (Boston, USA)

Paola Divieti Pajevic is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and she is a member of the Endocrine Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA, USA. Dr Divieti Pajevic received her MD in 1990 from the University of Milan, Italy and her PhD in Pathophysiology in 1995 from the University of Florence, Italy. She is the Principal Investigator of a NIH RO1 grant aimed to understand the role of the parathyroid hormone (PTH) receptor in osteocytes in vivo. She is the recipient of several prestigious awards; among them the John Haddad Young Investigator Award, the A. Jee Memorial Young Investigator Award the Claflin Distinguished Scholar Award, a very competitive recognition given by Harvard Medical School to women faculty during child-bearing years. Dr Divieti Pajevic’s research accomplishments in the field of osteocytes and PTH are also clearly documented by her numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals including a review on the Carboxyl-terminal PTH receptor in Endocrine Review. Her laboratory is currently investigating the role of PTH and Gs-alpha in osteocyte biology, by using in vivo mouse models in which the PTH receptor and Gs-alpha have been conditionally ablated in osteocytes. In addition, she has developed in vitro models for the study of the effect of microgravity on osteocyte functions.

Gordon Duff (Sheffield, UK)

Gordon Duff trained in medicine at Oxford and St Thomas’s Hospital, London, where he also gained a PhD in Neuropharmacology. Following postgraduate training, including junior faculty appointments at Yale Medical School and the Howard Hughes Institute of Molecular Immunology at Yale, he joined the Edinburgh School of Medicine in 1984 before his present post, Florey Professor of Molecular Medicine at Sheffield in 1990. He was Research Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Director of the Division of Genomic Medicine in the University of Sheffield, with research interests in inflammation and genetics. He is founding editor of the international journal CYTOKINE, advisory editor to the HUGO Journal, and Past-President of the International Cytokine Society. He was appointed inaugural Chairman of the Commission on Human Medicines in 2005. In 2006 he chaired the Secretary-of-State’s Expert Scientific Group on Clinical Trials following the disaster at Northwick Park. From 2002 to 2009 he was Chairman of the National Biological Standards Board, and is currently Chairman of the Government’s Scientific Pandemic Influenza Advisory Committee and Co-Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. He is an Honorary Fellow of St Peter’s College, Oxford, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Colleges of Physicians of Edinburgh and London (Croonian Lecturer) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, a Doctorate (Honoris Causa) by the University of Edinburgh, and a Knighthood for services to Public Health.

Stephen Emerson (Haverford, USA)

Stephen Emerson, MD, PhD is Professor and President of Haverford College. Educated at Haverford, Yale and Harvard, Dr Emerson served on the faculties of Harvard, Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania prior to returning to Haverford in 2007. Dr Emerson was the first to apply immunologic techniques to the purification of human hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells, and he was an early leader in the application of chemical engineering and tissue engineering principles to hematopoietic cell culture. His laboratory is credited with discovering the roles of osteoblasts in supporting hematopoietic stem cell proliferation, lineage commitment and terminal granuloytic maturation, as well as the connection between stem cell transcriptional programs and T lymphocyte development. Undergraduates in his Haverford College laboratory now study the role of the transcription factor NF-Y in stem cell differentiation, as well as the molecular basis for osteoblast-stem cell interactions.

Lynne Ferrar (Sheffield, UK)

Dr Lynne Ferrar is a Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield and Research Programme Manager within the Sheffield NIHR Bone Biomedical Research Unit. Having worked for several years as a clinical radiographer, she joined Richard Eastell’s group at the University of Sheffield in 1995 and completed a PhD based on the evaluation of morphometric x-ray absorptiometry for the identification of vertebral fractures. Funded by National Osteoporosis Society and Medical Research Council Fellowships, Dr Ferrar then continued her programme of vertebral fracture research, working closely with Richard Eastell and Guirong Jiang to evaluate algorithm-based qualitative diagnosis in radiographic and DXA-based definition of fractures. This work involved collaborations with international research groups in studies such as MrOS (USA) and the European multi-centre study, OPUS. Dr Ferrar has published 13 papers on vertebral fracture definition and is a reviewer for Bone and Osteoporosis International. She has also served as a member of the ISCD task force that developed the 2006 and 2007 guidelines for the application of DXA-based VFA.

William Fraser (Liverpool UK)

Professor Bill Fraser was born and educated in Glasgow, graduating from Glasgow University with BSc (Hons) MBChB and MD (Hons). He trained in Glasgow’s teaching hospitals before spending time as a Consultant/travelling Fellow in Canada. In 1991 he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Chemical Pathology and Head of the Metabolic Bone Disease Unit at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, promoted to Reader in 1998, Professor in 2001, and Head of the Unit of Clinical Chemistry in 2008. Since 2008 he has been appointed Director of Masters in Research for Clinical Science. He supervises a very active research group investigating the diagnosis and treatment of metabolic bone disease including osteoporosis and Paget’s disease of bone. Bill Fraser is on the Editorial Board of several journals, a Director of the Supra Regional Assay Service for bone metabolism and calcium homeostasis, and a Medical Advisor to the National Osteoporosis Society. He was the recipient of the ACB Foundation Award for 2006.

Mayrine Fraser (Glasgow, Scotland)

Mayrine Fraser undertook nurse training (RGN) in Inverness between 1986 and 1989 and continued to work there for a further three years as a Staff Nurse in orthopaedics. In 1992, she moved to Glasgow and continued working in orthopaedics firstly as a Staff Nurse and then a Ward Sister. During that time she also studied for a BSC which she received in 1999. She has now worked as an Osteoporosis Nurse Specialist for over 10 years in the Western Infirmary where she helped to develop the first Fracture Liaison Service in the UK. This offers assessment for treatment for the secondary prevention of fractures, to all patients aged over 50 who present with a new fracture. Mayrine has helped many other centres in the UK and worldwide develop such a service and has also had several papers published relating to the Fracture Liaison Service.

Leonard Freedman (Philadelphia, USA)

Leonard Freedman, PhD is Vice Dean for Research and Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University. Before joining Jefferson, Dr Freedman served as Vice President of Discovery for Women's Health and Musculoskeletal Therapies at Wyeth Research, charged with the discovery of new chemical and bio-therapeutic entities in women's health. Prior to his role at Wyeth, he was the Executive Director for the Department of Molecular Endocrinology at Merck Research Labs. Dr Freedman is a recognized leader in the field of nuclear hormone receptors. Following a post-doc with Dr Keith Yamamoto, he joined the faculty in Cell Biology and Genetics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer, where he rose to tenured Full Professor. Dr Freedman’s lab studied the biological roles of vitamin D3 and retinoid receptors. His lab also defined important new mechanisms by which nuclear receptors mediate transcriptional regulation. Dr Freedman has received several research awards, including the Boyer Research Award for Biomedical Research, and was the recipient of numerous grants, including a MERIT award from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. He was also the 2002 recipient of the Ernst Oppenheimer Award from The Endocrine Society. Dr Freedman earned a BA degree in Biology from Kalamazoo College, and his MSc and PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University of Rochester. He has published extensively and served on numerous scientific review panels. Dr Freedman has served on the editorial board of Molecular Endocrinology, Endocrinology and Endocrine Reviews, and has also been an editor of Molecular and Cellular Biology for the past eight years.

Paul Frenette (New York, USA)

Paul Frenette is currently the Irene and Dr Arthur Fishberg Professor of Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Starting this summer, he will become the Director of the Gottesman Stem Cell Institute of Albert Einstein College of Medicine. His laboratory has made seminal contributions to hematopoiesis and vascular biology. He has uncovered the critical role of the sympathetic nervous system in the regulation of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) egress from their niches, followed by an equally groundbreaking discovery elucidating circadian rhythmicity in HSC release. These studies have profoundly impacted our understanding of the bone-brain connection. His laboratory also studies the molecular mechanisms of vasoocclusion in sickle cell disease, demonstrating that adherent neutrophils in inflamed venules capture circulating sickle erythrocytes through activated beta2 integrins at the leukocyte’s leading edge. Such heterotypic cell-cell interactions likely impact other thrombo-inflammatory diseases.

Neil Gittoes (Birmingham, UK)

Dr Neil Gittoes graduated from the University of Birmingham with BSc (Hons), MBChB (Hons), and was later awarded a PhD in Endocrinology. He held a prestigious MRC Career Establishment Grant prior to being appointed Senior Lecturer in Endocrinology at the University of Birmingham in 2001. He has subsequently held roles as Consultant Endocrinologist and Divisional Director of Medicine at University Hospitals Birmingham. He established and leads the metabolic bone diseases unit in Birmingham. He has served as member of the Council for the Society for Endocrinology, UK and represents this society on the National Osteoporosis Society Health Professional Partners forum. He is currently Chairman of the Bone and Mineral Specialist Interest Group of the Society for Endocrinology and endocrinology adviser to the British National Formulary. He has been Goulstonian Lecturer at the Royal College of Physicians and co-founded and is inaugural chair of the Midland Bone Club. He is on the editorial board of Journal of Endocrinology and regularly reviews for a wide array of other endocrine-related journals. Dr Gittoes has published 71 papers, reviews and chapters and has lectured at national and international meetings. His main clinical and research interests focus on disorders of calcium homeostasis, osteoporosis and bone tumorigenesis.

Claus Glüer (Kiel, Germany)

Dr Claus Glüer is a Professor of Medical Physics at the Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel, Germany. His research is focused on the development of innovative parametric imaging techniques and their quantitative evaluation. Working in the field of osteoporosis for more than 20 years he has contributed specifically to the development of bone densitometry, quantitative ultrasound and high resolution computed tomography approaches. He has coordinated several multicenter studies including OPUS, a European project on epidemiology and optimised diagnostic assessment of osteoporosis. He also has a strong research interest in developing multimodal methods for molecular imaging with applications in oncology, inflammation, and skeletal research. Dr Glüer has published more than 140 original papers. He is the current president of the German Academy of Bone and Joint Sciences, Associate Editor of Osteoporosis International, and a member of the Committee of Scientific Advisors of the International Osteoporosis Foundation.

Cara Gottardi (Chicago, USA)

Dr Gottardi earned her PhD with Michael Caplan at Yale University on the sorting and trafficking of H,K- and Na,K-ATPase polytopic membrane proteins in polarized epithelia. She then received a Fulbright to study signaling functions of the tight junction-associated protein, ZO-1, in the laboratory of Dr Daniel Louvard (Pasteur Institute). Evidence that tight-junction peripheral components could also localize to the nucleus led her to pursue a post-doctoral fellowship with Dr Barry Gumbiner at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center on the adhesive and nuclear signaling functions of the recently discovered protein, ß-catenin. To this day, ß-catenin defines the paradigm of an adhesion/signaling protein, serving both as a critical structural component of the cadherin/catenin “Velcro” that holds cells together, as well as essential transcriptional co-factor for a family of DNA-binding factors (T-cell factor, TCF/Lymphocyte enhancer factor, LEF). Since establishing her own research group at Northwestern University, her work continues to focus on the rich topic of cell-cell adhesion regulation and its impact on gene expression via catenins.

Antonia Hardcastle (Aberdeen, Scotland)

Antonia Hardcastle has been working in the bone and musculoskeletal research programme at Aberdeen University since 2002. During this time she completed her MSc in Human Nutrition and Metabolism and PhD. Her PhD investigated associations between fruit and vegetable intakes and postmenopausal women’s bone health. This thesis won a competition sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline for the best PhD thesis on Polyphenols and Health. She was also awarded a Young Investigator prize by the National Osteoporosis Society for her work on dietary patterns. She has presented her work internationally (International Symposium of the Nutritional Aspects of Osteoporosis, Lausanne, Switzerland 2009) and nationally (Bone Research Society, Aberdeen 2007 and National Osteoporosis Society, Edinburgh 2007). She is currently working on a 3 year study examining the effects of diet on chronic low grade systemic inflammation. Her research interests are fruit and vegetables, flavonoids, dietary patterns and their effects on bone health.

Dennis Henriksen (Copenhagen, Denmark)

Dennis Henriksen, received his Master of Science in Engineering (Chemistry) at the Technical University of Denmark in 1988 and a PhD in Bioorganic Chemistry from the University of Copenhagen in 1992. Dr Henriksen was the scientific founder of Sanos Bioscience a company engaged in the development of GLP-2 for the treatment of bone related diseases. Presently, Dr Henriksen is the CEO of Sanos Bioscience. His area of interest includes homeostatic control of mineral metabolism and the interplay between the gastrointestinal hormones and bone remodeling balance, and pathogenesis and treatment of metabolic bone diseases. He is now actively involved in the clinical development of GLP-2as an agent for the treatment and management of postmenopausal osteoporosis.

Eran Hornstein (Rehovot, Israel)

Eran Hornstein is affiliated with the Department of Molecular Genetics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. Dr Hornstein obtained his MD/PhD at The Hebrew University, Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel. After a medical internship at the Hadassah Medical Center he moved to postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School with Cliff Tabin. Dr Hornstein established his own program at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2006. He recently received the Clore Award at the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Santa Foulkes Award and the Alon Award. Dr Hornstein is an Incumbent of the Helen and Milton Kimmelman Career Development Chair. His group primarily deals with the role of miRNA genes in development and human disease.

David Hosking (Nottingham, UK)

David Hosking is a Consultant Physician in the Metabolic Bone Disease service at the City Hospital, Nottingham, UK and until recently was also Professor of Mineral Metabolism in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Zagreb, Croatia and an examiner for the Royal College of Physicians of London. He received his medical training at the University of Birmingham Medical School, Birmingham, UK and post-graduate training in Leiden, Netherlands. His current research interests are in the long term control of Paget’s disease, primary hyperparathyroidism and renal bone disease. He has published over 200 papers and book chapters on Paget’s disease, osteoporosis, calcium metabolism and bisphosphonates. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Osteoporosis International, the Paget’s Foundation in the USA, from whom he received the J B Johnson Award for services to Paget’s disease.

Markus John (Basel, Switzerland)

Markus John received his MD from Heidelberg University. He has worked for 15 years on bone metabolism, in particular PTH and calcium-sensing, of which the first 6 years were in academia at Heidelberg and Massachusetts General Hospitals. He has spent the last 9 years in industry at Novartis with a focus on musculoskeletal diseases. During this time his roles and responsibilities have encompassed drug discovery, translational medicine and late-phase clinical development. Between 2005 and 2009, he investigated two calcilytic compounds and an oral formulation of PTH in first-in-human and proof-of concept studies. Since 2008, he is the Global Program Medical Director for the Novartis oral calcitonin project which is partnered with Nordic Bioscience; it is in Phase 3 clinical development for osteoporosis and osteoarthritis.

Stephen Kaptoge (Cambridge, UK)

Dr Stephen Kaptoge is a Senior Research Associate at the University of Cambridge Department of Public Health and Primary Care. He holds a Bachelors and Masters in Statistics and received PhD training in the epidemiology of osteoporosis and osteoporotic fractures from the University of Cambridge in 2005, where he was involved in conducting population-based epidemiological studies, mentored by Dr Jonathan Reeve. He has co-authored more than 30 research papers in the epidemiology of fractures (limb and vertebral), BMD, and bone structure, based on data from the European Prospective Osteoporosis Study (EPOS), the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer in Norfolk (EPIC-Norfolk), as well as collaborative work with investigators in the Study of Osteoporosis Fractures (SOF) and the Genetic Markers for Osteoporosis consortium (GENOMOS/GEFOS). His interests in chronic disease epidemiology have recently widened to the field of cardiovascular disease epidemiology where he is involved in the conduct of large-scale meta-analysis of established and emerging risk markers of vascular and nonvascular disease outcomes in the Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration (ERFC) with Professor John Danesh (University of Cambridge).

Gerard Karsenty (New York, USA)

Gerard Karsenty is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Genetics and Development at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University Medical Center, New York. He was educated in France; where he earned a BS in Experimental Science in Beauvais and subsequently was awarded PhD and MD degrees at the Medical School of the University of Paris V in 1984.  He spent the following two years as a Visiting Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, first in the Molecular, Cellular and Nutritional Endocrinology Branch of the National Institute of Arthritis, Diabetes, and Digestive and Kidney, and then in the Gene Regulation Section of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, National Cancer Institute. Following his work at the NIH, Professor Karsenty moved to the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, where he worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow and a Research Associate in the Department of Molecular Genetics. He was appointed Assistant Professor in this department in 1990 and Associate Professor in 1996.  In 1998, he joined the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston as Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics; and became Professor in 1999. Professor Karsenty assumed his present position at Columbia University in 2006 and is currently involved in research using mouse genetics to identify novel functional connections between organs and new physiologies relevant to humans. Specifically his lab is studying the skeleton as the organ using the mouse as the model. He is also author of 150 peer-reviewed articles and many invited reviews. Professor Karsenty has been fortunate to receive the following awards: the Drieu-Cholet Award from the French National Academy of Medicine (2006), the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award from the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (2006), the Schaefer Award, Columbia University Medical Center (2007), the Lee C. Howley Prize for Arthritis Research presented by the Arthritis Foundation (2008) and the Richard Lounsberry Award from the National Academy of Sciences (USA) and the French Academy of Science (2010).  He served as the Associate Editor of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research from 2003 to 2007 and is the current editor of several scientific journals, including Bone; Journal of Cell Biology; Developmental Cell, Cell Metabolism, Genes and Development and the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Moustapha Kassem (Odense, Denmark)

Moustapha Kassem is Professor of Endocrinology and Director of the Molecular Endocrinology Laboratory, University Hospital of Odense and Medical Biotechnology Center, Odense, Denmark. Dr Kassem’s research focus is on studying molecular mechanisms of bone formation and identifying novel targets for anabolic therapy of bone loss. His group is studying human mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) differentiation to osteogenic cells; studying the phenomenon of biological aging of human bone cells and MSC and how the senescent phenotype can be rescued by genetic and non-genetic approaches. Dr Kassem is the Director of Odense University Hospital [OUH] Center for Stem Cell Therapy which aims at introducing stem cell-based therapies in clinical practice. The center has coordinated the first three Danish clinical trials employing autologus stem cells for treatment of myocardial ischemia in patients with acute myocardial infarction and ischemic heart failure and for treatment of ischemia of lower extremities. Dr Kassem has published over 150 articles, reviews and book chapter in the area of bone biology and MSC biology.

Sharon Kean (Glasgow, Scotland)

Sharon Kean is Director of Information Systems at the Robertson Centre for Biostatistics (RCB), University of Glasgow which is part of the Glasgow Clinical Trials Unit. Sharon has direct management responsibilities for IT and Data Management personnel and provision of service within the Centre and also has extensive experience in implementing the Centre’s quality management system which is certified as ISO9001:2008 compliant. Sharon has worked at the RCB since 1989, during which time the Centre has been established as a Centre of Excellence and she also contributes to many external Steering and Scientific Committees for the Centre’s projects. The RCB is recognised internationally as a centre of excellence due to its contributions to medical research through its work on major international multi-centre clinical trials, epidemiological studies and other research projects. It has a staff of 45, incorporating statisticians, application programmers, database managers, research nurses, health economists, data monitors and secretarial and administrative support staff. Sharon has extensive experience in the design and conduct of clinical trials, particularly in the data management area, and expertise in software developments for clinical trials. Trial involvement includes large multi-centre trials such as WOSCOPS, PROSPER, IONA and IMAGES.

Michaela Kneissel (Basel, Switzerland)

Michaela Kneissel is Head of Bone Metabolism Research in the Musculoskeletal Disease Area, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Novartis Pharma AG, Basel, Switzerland. Michaela Kneissel received her PhD from the University of Vienna, Austria. She performed part of her PhD work at the Hard Tissue Research Unit, University College London, UK and was post doctoral fellow at the Radiobiology Division, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA before joining Novartis. The main focus of her research is the discovery and development of drugs for osteoporosis therapy. In recent years her research interest was centred on the bone formation inhibitor sclerostin and osteocyte biology.

Anne Langston (Dundee, Scotland)

Anne has a background in Oceanography and Marine Biology in which she received a Masters degree before moving into studies on fish health. Studies on Atlantic salmon led to a PhD and further employment in Scotland, Ireland and Norway. There aren’t many advantages to working in fish health but travelling was one, and a ready supply of salmon was another. After a while Anne moved into human clinical trials - a more logical progression than you might imagine as a highly developed ability to implement good experimental design is also required in animal health studies as well as human studies. Anne has considerable experience of leading multi-centre clinical trials, mostly in musculoskeletal disease, and of clinical research management. She worked for many years in the Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen before moving to the University of Edinburgh, and more recently to the University of Dundee. She is currently the Senior R&D Manager for the recently launched Tayside Academic Health Sciences, a joint enterprise between the University of Dundee and NHS Tayside.

Jane Lian (Worcester, USA)

Jane Lian is Professor in Cell Biology and Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Her work addresses molecular mechanisms governing osteoblast growth and differentiation. Discoveries of mediators of bone formation are being made through a study of the osteocalcin and Runx2 genes and their functional activities. Her studies have been recognized by Awards from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, and the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. She serves on NIH review panels, the Research Advisory Board of the Shriners Hospital and on the Executive Committee for the International Conference of Chemistry and Biology of Mineralized Tissues. Dr Lian is the 2009-2010 President of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, is a co-editor of the Primer on Metabolic Bone Diseases and Disorders of Mineral Metabolism, CRC Reviews in Gene Regulation, and an editorial board member of major journals. Current research programs are supported by NIH grants on 1) molecular osteogenic pathways during bone development (NIDCR; 2) role of Runx family of transcription factors as integrators of signal transduction pathways required for bone formation (NIAMS); and 3) the contribution of Runx factors to metastatic bone disease (NCI).

Östen Ljunggren (Uppsala, Sweden)

Östen Ljunggren is a Professor of Metabolic Bone Diseases at Uppsala University, Sweden. He is a Senior Consultant in Endocrinology and Internal Medicine and currently Head of Department for Endocrinology and Diabetes and Director of the Osteoporosis Unit, at Uppsala University Hospital. He has published more than 120 scientific papers, review articles and textbook chapters in the fields of bone cell biology and metabolic bone diseases. Östen Ljunggren is a former President of the Swedish Osteoporosis Society and has been involved in the evaluation and generation of national clinical guidelines for the treatment of osteoporosis. He has also participated in numerous clinical trials in the field of metabolic bone disease.

Frank Luyten (Leuven, Belgium)

Frank Luyten is a tenured full Professor and Head of the Division of Rheumatology at the University Hospitals Leuven; Director of the Laboratory for Skeletal Development and Joint Disorders and of Prometheus, the Tissue Engineering Division at the KULeuven; Chairman of the Department of Musculoskeletal Sciences, KULeuven, Belgium. He obtained his MD, PhD and Board Certification in Rheumatology at the University of Ghent, Belgium. He spent his postdoctoral training at the National Institute of Dental Research, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA. He was Group Leader of the Developmental Biology Unit at the Bone Research Branch, NIDR, NIH, Bethesda, USA. Professor Luyten is founder, scientific and medical advisor, and member of the Board of Directors of TiGeniX, a biotech spin-off of the Universities of Leuven and Ghent. He serves as advisor and board member of other biotech companies in the field of Regenerative Medicine including PharmaCell.

Tom MacDonald (Dundee, Scotland)

Tom MacDonald is Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacoepidemiology in the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, University of Dundee, and Honorary Consultant Physician at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School. His research interests are hypertension and drug safety. He is a Past President of the International Society of Pharmacoepidemiology, a past member of the pharmacovigilance committee of the committee on safety of medicine and the current Director of the Tayside Medicines Monitoring Unit. He is a past member of the British Hypertension Society Executive. He is the Director of the Regional Cardiovascular Risk Clinic and Hypertension Research Centre at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School. Professor MacDonald has published extensively on drug safety especially the safety of non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). He has also published many studies of patients with cardiovascular risk factors and cardiovascular disorders.

Graeme MacLennan (Aberdeen, Scotland)

Graeme MacLennan is Senior Statistician at the Health Services Research Unit at the University of Aberdeen, a position taken up in 2008. He has over 10 years’ experience in the design, conduct, analysis and dissemination of pragmatic randomised controlled trials in a variety of clinical settings and as such his research interests are focused on these areas. In particular, research interests are in cluster randomised trials, non-compliance with allocated treatment and meta-analyses of competing interventions that have not been trialled head to head in randomised controlled trials.

Sharmila Majumdar (San Francisco, USA)

Sharmila Majumdar obtained her PhD from Yale University in 1987 in Engineering and Applied Science. After a short stay at Yale as a post-doctoral researcher and Assistant Professor she joined UCSF as an Assistant Professor in 1989. She is currently Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Departments of Radiology and Biomedical imaging and Orthopedic Surgery at UCSF, and in Bioengineering at UC Berkeley. She is Director of the Musculo-skeletal and Quantitative Imaging Research group (MQIR) at UCSF, an inter-disciplinary group consisting of faculty, post-doctoral scholars and students. Her research work on imaging, particularly magnetic resonance and micro computed tomography, and development of image processing and analysis tools, has been focused in the areas of osteoporosis, osteo-arthritis and lower back pain. Her research is supported by grants from the NIH, corporate entities and is diverse ranging from technical development to clinical trials. She was selected as a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers in 2004 and a fellow of the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine in 2008. In 2007, she was awarded the Excellence in Direct Teaching and/or Excellence in Mentoring and Advising Award by the UCSF Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators. She has published extensively in highly regarded journals such as the Journal of Bone Mineral Research, Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, etc. and serves as a reviewer and on the Editorial Board of scientific journals and is a recognized expert in the area of imaging.

Eugene McCloskey (Sheffield, UK)

Eugene McCloskey is Reader in Adult Bone Diseases in the Academic Unit of Bone Metabolism and WHO Collaborating Centre for Metabolic Bone Diseases at the University of Sheffield. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and reviews and is an acknowledged authority in the fields of vertebral fracture definition, osteoporosis epidemiology, fracture risk and bone health in cancer. He contributed to the development of the FRAX tool for fracture risk assessment and the subsequent guideline from the National Osteoporosis Guideline Group. He is on a number of editorial boards and is a member of committees within the IOF, the Bone Research Society and the ASBMR.

Michael McClung (Portland, USA)

Dr Michael McClung received his medical degree from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and completed his residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital in the same city. His fellowship in endocrinology was completed at the National Institutes of Health. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the American College of Endocrinology. He has served on the Board of the International Society for Clinical Densitometry and the Committee of Scientific Advisors for the International Osteoporosis Foundation. As Founding Director of the Oregon Osteoporosis Center in Portland, Oregon and Assistant Director of the Department of Medical Education at Providence Portland Medical Center, he is involved in medical education and clinical practice. His Center has participated in the conduct of and reporting of many clinical trials.

Heather McKay (Vancouver, Canada)

Dr McKay is a Professor in the Faculty of Medicine with a cross-appointment in the Departments of Family Practice and Orthopaedics. Her interdisciplinary PhD from the University of Saskatchewan spanned the disciplines of human growth and development, kinesiology, bone biology and medical imaging. Her research led to scholar awards from the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. She is co-PI of the research team that was awarded national and provincial grants totalling $40M to develop Canada’s first Centre for Hip Health and Mobility where she now serves as Director. Her research program - a lifespan approach to bone health - investigates the role of physical activity and other lifestyle factors in optimizing bone health during both childhood and in later life. Her research supports the effectiveness of physical activity as a public health initiative; this has led to changes to school programs and government policy. Dr McKay’s original research and her capacity for translating research into action has gained her international recognition. A major advocate for the importance of graduate student teaching, she was recently awarded the Knowledge Translation Award by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. In June 2009, she was the recipient of BC Women’s Distinction Award for Health and Active Living.

Edward Nemeth (Toronto, Canada)

Edward Nemeth is an Executive Scientist with experience in both academia and industry. He holds a BA in Chemistry and Psychology from Lawrence University, an MA in Psychology from Princeton University, and MS, MPhil and PhD in Pharmacology from Yale University. Dr Nemeth was a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Neurobiology at the National Institutes of Health and in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1986, Dr Nemeth joined the faculty of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He joined NPS Pharmaceuticals in March 1990 where he held several executive positions before becoming Chief Scientific Officer in 1997. In 2007, Dr Nemeth founded MetisMedia, an early stage discovery company and consultancy firm for the biopharmaceutical industry. He is the Senior Scientific Advisor to MariCal, a company that is commercializing calcium receptor technology for the food and companion animal industry. He is a Visiting Scientist in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Toronto where he co-directs the drug discovery course and is a Consultant to the CIHR Strategic Training Program in Biological Therapeutics. Dr Nemeth’s principal research interests are the pharmacology of G protein-coupled receptors and the physiology of bone and mineral metabolism. In 1985, he proposed the existence of calcium receptors in the parathyroid glands which enable these cells to regulate the secretion of parathyroid hormone (PTH) in response to small changes in the levels of serum calcium. He established and led the team that discovered the first molecules that act on the calcium receptor and coined the terms “calcimimetic” and “calcilytic” to describe activators and inhibitors of this receptor, respectively. The first drug resulting from these efforts is cinacalcet (Sensipar®). Dr Nemeth participated in the development of PTH (Preotact®) as well as calcilytic compounds, which are being developed by several pharmaceutical companies as anabolic therapy for osteoporosis. Dr Nemeth is additionally interested in the management of scientific research and how organizational structures and processes can foster creativity and the discovery of new medicines.

Ellinor Nordin (Umeå, Sweden)

Ellinor Nordin’s clinical experiences and interest in older people, research and participation in networks and conferences around Europe have been an important part of her professional growth. She has been a Physiotherapist since 1997 and has gained clinical experience from fall-preventive practice within residential facilities; guidelines, staff-education, management-support, team-collaborations, assessments, and physical training aimed at regaining control of physical and mental functions. She has also been involved in research on falls prevention, physical exercise and assessment tools of gait and balance and their predictive value in relation to future falls in older adults. The title of her doctoral thesis was Assessment of balance control in relation to fall risk among older people (Umeå University, Sweden, 2008). She is an associate member of the Prevention of Falls Network Europe (ProFaNE), Work Package 3: Assessment of Balance Function. Thus, identification and evaluation of existing instruments and procedures for assessment of balance function in older people have, over the years, been an important part of her professional practice.

John Norrie (Glasgow, Scotland)

John Norrie is an experienced clinical trialist and medical statistician by training. He is currently Professor of Clinical Trials and Biostatistics, and Director of Biostatistics at the Robertson Centre for Biostatistics. After 13 years at the Robertson Centre (from 1990-2003), during which John worked on several international landmark cardiovascular drug RCT such as the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (WOSCOPS, New England Journal of Medicine, 1995, 2007) and IMAGES (Lancet, 2003), John moved to the Health Services Research Unit at Aberdeen University to become the first Director of the Centre for Healthcare Randomised Trials (CHaRT), specialising in non-drug, publicly funded complex intervention trials. John has recently become the Director of CHRICCIT (The Centres for Health Research Informatics and Complex Intervention Trials) at the University of Glasgow, an initiative which is part of the Scottish Academic Health Sciences Collaboration, providing a safe haven for record linkage into routine NHS data resources. John graduated in Mathematics from Kings College in London and took a Masters in Statistics at the London School of Economics. John has published widely in the medical scientific literature, with over 100 peer reviewed articles, with particular interest in methodological issues in clinical trials, such as recruitment and retention, missing data, survival analysis and competing risks. In 2007 John was elected a Director of the Society for Clinical Trials and is currently an Associate Editor for Clinical Trials and Statistical Advisor to journal Personality and Mental Health. John sits on numerous funding committees, and Data Monitoring Committees and Steering Committees as an independent statistician and experienced trialist.

Bjorn Olsen (Boston, USA)

Dr Bjorn Olsen is Hersey Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School and Dean for Research and Professor of Developmental Biology at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. Over the past 45 years, he has made fundamental contributions to research into the roles of the extracellular matrix in embryonic development, and skeletal and vascular cell and molecular biology. His research has furthered understanding of diseases from dwarfism to congenital vascular anomalies, osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, corneal dystrophy and retinal degeneration. His studies have uncovered fundamental roles of collagens, transcription factors and receptors that affect not only skeletal development, but also angiogenesis and blood vessel morphogenesis. He has published over 350 papers in professional journals. He is a member of and has held leadership positions in several professional organizations, including the International Society for Matrix Biology (as President), and has served on Editorial Boards of several major journals including Journal of Cell Biology, Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Development. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Matrix Biology and BioMed Central’s Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine. His honors include election to the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and ScanBalt Academy, honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Oslo and University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, the Humboldt Research Award from Germany, the H.C. Jacobæus Prize, and the Senior Research prize of the American Society of Matrix Biology.

Ewa Paleolog (London, UK)

Dr Ewa Paleolog is Reader in Cytokine Biology of Vessels at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology (Imperial College, Faculty of Medicine, London, UK). Her research focuses on the role of the vascular endothelial lining of blood vessels in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In chronic inflammatory diseases such as RA, the vasculature is intricately linked with cells of the immune system, through molecular cross-talk involving cytokines and growth factors, producing an exquisitely regulated interplay of inflammation, immunity and new blood vessel growth (‘angiogenesis’). Dr Paleolog’s research programme utilises cell culture techniques, using both primary cells and disease tissue, combined with animal models of disease. Moreover, she has worked with clinical colleagues to study the mechanisms of action of TNF blockade in patients with RA and to develop new approaches to treat RA. In addition to applying pre-clinical models of RA, her group is researching the role of angiogenesis and hypoxia in other diseases, including colorectal cancer and varicose veins. Her studies on the role of the vasculature in RA were at the forefront of research in this field, and she has published over 80 manuscripts and reviews in the field of angiogenesis and disease. Dr Paleolog is also involved in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, and is Director of Postgraduate Studies at the Kennedy Institute.

Darryl Quarles (Memphis, USA)

Dr Quarles is the Director of the Department of Internal Medicine’s Nephrology Division and Associate Dean for Research in the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center beginning January, 2010. Quarles graduated magna cum laude from Duke University and earned his MD from the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Dr Quarles finished his medical school training and residency in Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He completed his fellowship in Nephrology at Duke University Medical Center. He was on the faculty at Duke from 1986 to 2004, where he was Professor of Medicine, Director of the Center for Bone and Mineral Disorders and developed a strong NIH funded research program. He was Director of the Kidney Institute and the Department of Internal Medicine’s Nephrology Division at the University of Kansas Medical Center in from 2004-2010. He is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine and in the subspecialty of Nephrology. He is a former deputy editor for the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, a member of the editorial board for Bone and Mineral Metabolism, and a member of the publications committee for the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Research and was recently inducted into the Association of American Physicians. Current areas of investigation include: 1) the regulation and function of FGF23, 2) the role of polycystins and primary cilia in bone development and mechanosensing, 3) the function of the orphan receptor GPRC6A, and 4) extracellular calcium sensing mechanisms in bone.

Stuart Ralston (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Stuart Ralston graduated in medicine from Glasgow University in 1978 and developed an interest in metabolic bone disease during postgraduate training with Dr Iain T Boyle at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Professor Ralston trained in general internal medicine and rheumatology in Glasgow between 1981 and 1988. He was appointed as a Wellcome Senior Clinical Research Fellow and Honorary Consultant at the University of Edinburgh between 1988 and 1990 and moved to Aberdeen to take up an appointment as Senior Lecturer in Medicine in 1991. He was appointed as Professor of Medicine and Bone Metabolism in 1996 and was Director of the Institute of Medical Sciences at Aberdeen between 2002 and 2004. Professor Ralston took up the ARC Chair of Rheumatology at the University of Edinburgh in February 2005 and was appointed as Head of the School of Molecular and Clinical Medicine in November 2005. He is an Honorary Consultant Rheumatologist with Lothian Health Board and is Lead Clinician for Osteoporosis Services within NHS Lothian. Professor Ralston has published extensively on several aspects of bone disease including the genetics of osteoporosis; the pathogenesis and management of Paget's disease of bone; the role of nitric oxide and cannabinoids as regulators of bone metabolism. He was President of the European Calcified Tissues Society between 1998 and 2005. He is currently joint editor-in-chief of Calcified Tissue International, and associate editor of Bone.

Susanne Reventlow (Copenhagen, Denmark)

Susanne Reventlow is Research Director at the Research Unit for General Practice in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is a medical doctor and has an MSc in Social Anthropology. She has worked as a general practitioner since 1987, initially in the provincial town of Slagelse in Zealand, Denmark, and more recently in a general practice clinic at the University of Copenhagen. Her recent research interests concern patients’ experiences of, and perspectives on, health risks and medical technology, using osteoporosis as an example. Other research interests include ageing, body and identity, doctor-patient communication and how metaphors mediate meaning. She has worked with theoretical and methodological issues regarding general practice research. The title of her doctoral thesis is: Risk perception and osteoporosis in women aged 60-70. A qualitative study of risk experience, cultural notions, bodily perception and body action and behaviour.

Clifford Rosen (Scarborough, USA)

Dr Clifford Rosen, MD is the Director of Clinical and Translational Research and a Senior Scientist at Maine Medical Center’s Research Institute. His other current positions include Senior Staff Scientist at the Jackson Laboratory, Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, and Professor of Nutrition at the University of Maine, Orono. Dr Rosen is the founder and Former Director of the Maine Center for Osteoporosis Research and Education. He was the first Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Clinical Densitometry, is the current Editor-in-Chief of The Primer in Metabolic Bone Diseases, and an Associate Editor for JCEM. His publications include more than 325 peer-reviewed manuscripts, covering both clinical and basic bone biology. Dr Rosen has overseen numerous phase II and III clinical trials, funded both privately and through the NIH. He is a member of the FDA Advisory Panel on Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs and a former chairperson of that committee. He was Permanent Chair of the NIH Review Panel for Skeletal Biology and Bone Diseases for 2002-2004, and is currently a member of the NIAMS Scientific Advisory Board. He served as President of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research in 2002-2003, and was most recently honored to present the Louis V. Avioli Memorial Lecture, “Bone Marrow Fat: Neighbor or Nemesis,” at the 30th Annual ASBMR Official Scientific Meeting in Montreal, Canada. Dr Rosen’s research interests include the genetic regulation of insulin-like growth factor relative to skeletal metabolism, PTH as an anabolic therapy, and the relationship between marrow adipogenesis and osteoblastogenesis.

Christian Roux (Paris, France)

Christian Roux is Professor of Rheumatology and Head of Bone Unit at Cochin Hospital, Paris Descartes University, France. He received his medical training at the University of Paris, and his PhD at the University of Compiègne, for his data on bone assessment by ultrasounds. He has published works in the areas of primary and secondary osteoporosis, malignant bone diseases, and Paget’s disease. He is author and co-author of 150 original papers and book chapters. He is President of GRIO, the French Society of Osteoporosis. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Osteoporosis International.

Peter Sandercock (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Professor Peter Sandercock is a Clinical Neurologist actively involved in acute stroke care at the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh. He was the Principal Investigator for the first International Stroke Trial (IST-1), the first 'mega-trial' in acute stroke, to evaluate antithrombotic treatment with aspirin, heparin, both or neither in 20,000 patients recruited from almost 500 hospitals in 37 countries world-wide. He is currently involved in the design, conduct or analysis of a number of trials in stroke treatment and prevention (CLOTS, ENOS, ASCEND, AAA, STICH-2, HPS-THRIVE, RELY, STABILITY, EUROTHERM). He is Co-Chief Investigator of the third International Stroke Trial (IST-3) of thrombolytic therapy for acute ischaemic stroke which seeks to recruit 3000 patients from 400 hospitals worldwide by mid 2009 (2000 recruited to date, making it by far the world’s largest clinical trial of this treatment). He is Co-ordinating Editor of the Cochrane Stroke Group, which publishes and updates systematic reviews of trials of different interventions for the treatment, rehabilitation and secondary prevention of stroke. The Group has published over 100 reviews. With his colleague, Dr Malcolm Macleod, he has also worked on systematic reviews of animal experimental data, to try and make the process of translation from bench to bedside more fruitful. Professor Sandercock is also Director of Edinburgh Neuroscience.

Roger Smith (Oxford, UK)

Roger Smith is at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford, UK. His main research interests are in the causes and treatment of rare bone diseases. He qualified in Cambridge and London and did postgraduate research in the MRC Tropical Metabolism Research Unit in the West Indies, and subsequently in Los Angeles USA. He was then appointed to a Senior Wellcome Research Fellowship with Professor Charles Dent at University College Hospital in London. After four years he moved to Oxford and developed metabolic bone research contributing particularly to the clinical use of bisphosphonates to the molecular causes of osteogenesis imperfecta, and to disorders of ectopic mineralisation. He is the author of more than 200 papers and several books; he was previously Chairman of the Bone and Tooth Society and the National Association for the Relief of Paget’s disease; and he was a Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, and is currently an Emeritus Fellow of Green Templeton College.

Tim Spector (London, UK)

Tim Spector is a Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at Kings College, London and Director of the TwinsUK Registry based at St Thomas’ Hospital, London. He trained in rheumatology and epidemiology and moved into genetic epidemiology in 1993 when he founded the UK Twins Registry of 11,000 twins, which is one of the richest collections of genotypic and phenotypic information on twins worldwide. Its breadth of research has expanded to cover the genetics of a wide range of common complex traits many of which were previously thought to be mainly due to ageing and environment. Most recently through GWAS studies his group have found over 300 novel gene loci in over 30 disease areas including osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, melanoma, baldness, and telomere length. He has published over 500 research articles on common diseases and is an NHS NIHR Senior Investigator. He is PI of the Wellcome Trust Muther study and of the multicentre EU Euroclot and Treat OA studies, and a partner in five others. He was awarded in 2009 an ERC Senior Investigator award to study epigenetics. He has written several books, focusing on osteoporosis and genetics for the scientific and public communities and presents regularly in the media.

Anne Sutcliffe (Manchester, UK)

Following a variety of hospital and community based nursing posts Anne was introduced to Metabolic Bone Disease when she was appointed as Research Coordinator, Bone Diseases at Newcastle General Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne in 1989. This synthesised into the role of Osteoporosis Specialist Nurse in 1991, the first post of this kind in the UK. Until 2008 she worked as a Specialist Nurse based at the Bone Clinic at Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne; a role that developed many clinical, educational and research initiatives linked across both primary and secondary care. She has published widely in the nursing press on many aspects of osteoporosis and more recently on Paget’s disease. In 2008 she was appointed as Healthcare and Education Officer for The Paget’s Association; an innovative national post that encompasses a variety of educational and support activities aimed at those with Paget’s disease, the public and health professionals. In addition to her current employment in the voluntary sector Anne was previously involved with the National Osteoporosis Society (NOS) as a trustee, chair of the NOS Allied Health Professionals Forum and member of other related scientific bodies.

Shu Takeda (Tokyo, Japan)

Shu Takeda was born in Tokyo Japan. He received his MD and PhD degrees from the University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1992 and 2002, respectively. He completed his residency and fellowship in endocrinology at the University of Tokyo Hospital in 1996. He was an Associate Professor at Tokyo Medical and Dental University from 2004 to 2009 and then joined the Section of Nephrology, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Internal Medicine, Keio University School of Medicine, where he is an Associate Professor. He also serves as a Clinical Professor of Tokyo Medical and Dental University. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research and the Journal of Bone and Mineral Metabolism. He has received many awards including the President Book award and the Young Investigator’s award from ASBMR and a Research award from the Japanese Endocrine Society. His current research interests are molecular elucidation of the crosstalk between bone and other organs.

Rajesh Thakker (Oxford, UK)

Rajesh Thakker (MA, MD, FRCP, FRCP(Ed), FRCPath, FMedSci) is currently the May Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, UK. He commenced his pre-clinical medical training at Cambridge University with a BA in the Natural Sciences Tripos, and continued his clinical training at the Middlesex Hospital, London, UK. After qualifying, in 1980, he worked as a Junior Doctor at Northwick Park Hospital and The Hammersmith Hospital, and was Medical Registrar and an MRC Training Fellow at The Middlesex Hospital. He was appointed Consultant Physician and Endocrinologist at Northwick Park Hospital (MRC Clinical Research Centre), and as a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (RPMS) – The Hammersmith Hospital, in 1988. He remained at RPMS, where he became Professor of Medicine (1995), until 1999, when he took up his present position in Oxford. He has pursued a research programme, funded by the MRC (UK) that investigates the molecular basis of calcium disorders. He has been the recipient of many prizes which include the Young Investigator Award from the ASBMR (USA), the Raymond-Horton Smith Prize (Cambridge University, UK), the Society for Endocrinology (UK) medal, the European Journal of Endocrinology Prize (EFES), the Graham Bull Prize from the Royal College of Physicians (UK), and the Louis V. Avioli Founder’s Award from the ASBMR (USA).

Daniel Thiebaud (Sydney, Australia)

Daniel Thiebaud graduated in 1980, he completed Fellowships in Internal Medicine, then Endocrinology, and was appointed Associate Professor of Medicine at Lausanne University in 1994. In 1988, he spent a 2 years sabbatical at St Vincent's Institute of Medical Research (Professor T. J. Martin), University of Melbourne, Australia. Daniel’s major interest in research was bone cell biology and clinical research for new drugs development in Diabetes, Metabolic Bone Diseases and Osteoporosis. He was teaching Internal Medicine and Endocrinology with special expertise in Diabetes, Endocrinology, Metabolic Bone Diseases and particularly Osteoporosis. He published 80 papers in peer reviewed journals, mostly in Metabolic Bone Diseases and Osteoporosis. In 1998, Daniel joined Eli Lilly in Australia as Medical Director for Lilly Endocrine. From 2001, as the Global Medical Advisor for the clinical strategy in Endocrinology and Bone, he led the clinical strategy for new Drug development for Eli Lilly supporting new studies in Osteoporosis in Asia, including Japan. In late 2008, Daniel was recruited by Amgen to support the bone franchise development in Australia, as well as for the International region. Daniel is currently Director of the Bone Franchise and Acting Executive Medical Director and works between headquarters in the USA, Europe and Australia across the new products in the bone portfolio, supporting phase 2 to 4 development and registration.

Shaun Treweek (Dundee, Scotland)

Shaun Treweek has two jobs, one as a Senior Lecturer in the University’s Clinical & Population Sciences and Education Division, the other as Assistant Director of the Tayside Clinical Trials Unit. In both jobs he is interested in how to design trials that are more relevant to those expected to use the results. He is looking at ways of improving trial design so that it is easier to apply their results to clinical practice and in developing tools to help trialists design and manage trials. He is a coauthor of the CONSORT extension for pragmatic trials and lead author of a review looking at the link between design and applicability. Trial recruitment is a particular interest and Shaun is the lead author of the Cochrane review on strategies to improve trial recruitment. He is also developing software to support recruitment to primary care trials. Finally, he is part of two international projects that aim to make it easier for health research to find its way into health policy in low and middle-income countries. Before moving to the University of Dundee, Shaun spent six years in Oslo working on trial methodology and discovering new and interesting ways to serve fish.

Roger Zebaze (Melbourne, Australia)

Dr Zebaze is a Medical Officer and a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Medicine at Austin Health/University of Melbourne, Australia. He has published more than 20 peers reviewed papers and book chapters in the past 6 years, most of them on the structural and biomechanical basis of fragility. The quality of his work has earned him numerous awards including the TJ Martin Award, which is the most prestigious award given by the Australian and New Zealand Bone and Mineral Society and last year, The American Society Mineral Research Sun-Chi Harada Young Investigator Award in 2008. Dr Zebaze serves as a reviewer for all the main bone journals (JBMR, Bone, Osteoporosis International and CTI) and numerous granting bodies.