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Michael Berridge is an Emeritus Babraham Fellow at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge. His main area of research interest concerns the role of calcium (Ca2+) in the mode of action of hormones and neurotransmitters in the control of many different cellular processes. Recent attention has focused on the role of IP3 in controlling the spatiotemporal aspects of calcium signalling with particular emphasis on neural signalling, cardiac contractility and cell proliferation. He became a Fellow of Trinity College in 1972 and was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society in 1984. For his work on second messengers, Berridge has received numerous awards and prizes, including The King Faisal International Prize in Science, The Louis Jeantet Prize in Medicine, The Albert Lasker Medical Research Award, The Heineken Prize, The Wolf Foundation Prize in Medicine and The Shaw Prize. In 1998 he was knighted for his service to science. John Bilezikian MD, Dorothy L and Daniel H Silberberg Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, is Chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Director of the Metabolic Bone Diseases Program. A member of numerous scientific societies, Dr Bilezikian is a former President of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research and the International Society for Clinical Densitometry. He is on the Board of Governors of the International Osteoporosis Foundation and a former Councillor of The Endocrine Society. He served as Editor-in-Chief of TES’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 2000-2004 and is currently Senior Associate Editor of ASBMR’s Journal of Bone and Mineral Research. Dr Bilezikian leads an active clinical and laboratory program of research in metabolic bone diseases and has authored over 500 publications and co-edited numerous textbooks such as Principles of Bone Biology, 3rd Edition (Academic Press, 2008). Jens Bollerslev is Head of the Section of Endocrinology at Rikshospitalet in Oslo, Norway and Professor in Endocrinology at the University of Oslo. His scientific interests have primarily been related to neuroendocrinology, especially acromegaly and GHD, and monogenetic disorders of bone metabolism (he defended his thesis on human osteopetrosis in 1990). For many years he has also been interested in treatment of borderline primary hyperparathyroidism, and took the initiative to a randomized Scandinavian study on the effect of operation versus conservative observation. The first results from this study have recently been published. In acromegaly he is especially interested in new directions in pharmacotherapy. From the perspective of different mammalian mutations of osteopetrosis, Jens Bollerslev has contributed to international collaborations on the topic of osteoclast dysfunction and the coupling principle. In the bone field, he is currently involved in clinical investigations on bone loss in relation to solid organ transplantation. Edward Brown MD attended Harvard University, where he became interested in how metal ions influence protein structure and function. His formal research training took place at the National Institutes of Health with Gerald Aurbach, where he began to investigate how calcium ions directly regulate parathyroid function. His early studies, along with those of Ed Nemeth and Dolores Shoback, suggested the existence of a G protein-coupled, calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) that regulated parathyroid function. Expression cloning enabled isolation of the bovine CaSR cDNA in 1993 by Drs Brown and Steve Hebert. The team of Jon and Christine Seidman, Martin Pollak, Brown and Hebert then identified forms of PTH-dependent hypercalcemia and hypoparathyroidism caused by inactivating and activating CaSR mutations, respectively. His subsequent work has elucidated the CaSR’s role in a variety of cell types in health and disease and key aspects of its structure and function. This work also contributed to the development of a calcimimetic CaSR activator that is now widely used for treating secondary hyperparathyroidism in kidney failure. Dr Cauley is Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Graduate School of Public Health. She completed her undergraduate work in nursing at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, and her postgraduate degrees at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Dr Cauley has been involved in osteoporosis research for over 20 years. She is the Principal Investigator of several large cohort studies including the Study of Osteoporotic Fracture (SOF) and the Osteoporotic Fracture Risk in Older Men (MrOS). She was also the clinic site Principal Investigator of several major randomized clinical trials including the Fracture Intervention Trial (FIT) and the Raloxifene Use for the Heart Study (RUTH). Dr Cauley is a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology; her professional memberships include the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, the Society for Epidemiological Research, the American Public Health Association, and the Endocrine Society. In 2004 Dr Cauley received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the GSPH. She was included in the 2002 Pittsburgh Post Gazette’s “Dozen Making a Difference to your Health” series. She has been Director of the Epidemiology of Aging Training Program, funded by NIH for over 15 years. Her research has focused on women's health and aging, in particular osteoporosis, fractures and falls, breast cancer, the interaction between endogenous and exogenous hormones, risk factors, inflammation, and disease outcomes. She has authored more than 300 papers for scientific journals, including New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, and Osteoporosis International. In addition to her work for journals, Dr Cauley has also contributed chapters to many books and lectures frequently. Denis Clohisy is an Orthopaedic Surgeon at the University of Minnesota with a subspecialty interest in orthopaedic oncology. He is a graduate of Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois, and of the University of Minnesota residency program in orthopaedic surgery. He performed postdoctoral training in bone cell biology at Washington University in St Louis and a clinical fellowship in musculoskeletal oncology was performed at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital. He holds the Roby C Thompson Chair in Musculoskeletal Oncology at the University of Minnesota and is currently a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at that institution. He chairs the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ Research Development Committee. Dr Clohisy’s research involves three areas: studying the pathophysiology of bone cancer pain, understanding the cellular mechanisms of cancer-induced bone destruction, and clinical research in the diagnosis and treatment of extremity sarcomas. Priority areas throughout his career have been and remain: the development of orthopaedic clinician scientists and performing translational research linking the treatment of musculoskeletal neoplasms with new basic laboratory discoveries in this same area. Dennis Discher is currently a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and in the Graduate Groups in Cell and Molecular Biology and Physics. He received a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993 for studies in cell biophysics and splice-o-form biochemistry/biophysics, and was a National Science Foundation International Fellow at the University of British Columbia until 1996. He has co-authored nearly 150 publications that range in topic from matrix effects on stem cells and biochemical physics of protein folding to self-assembling polymers, with papers appearing in Cell, Science, Journal of Cell Biology, PNAS, and Nature Physics. Honours and Service include a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the US-NSF, the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Award from the Humboldt Foundation of Germany, and serving on various NIH Study Sections as well as on the editorial board for Science. Professor Engelke received a PhD in Physics from the University of Hamburg for his pioneering work on µCT using Synchrotron Radiation. Afterwards he joined the Osteoporosis Research Group at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) to develop advanced radiographic methods for the diagnosis of osteoporosis. At UCSF he also developed the first digital workstation for vertebral fracture analysis in multi center clinical trials. He then joined the newly formed Institute of Medical Physics (IMP) at the University of Erlangen to developed µCT Scanners and advanced image processing methods for Computed Tomography. Under his leadership the IMP also developed and conducted various exercise studies to prevent bone loss in elderly subjects. Professor Engelke joined Synarc as a Director of Advance Imaging Techniques in 2005 but continues research at the University of Erlangen, focusing on advanced imaging and analysis technique for QCT and µCT in Osteoporosis and Arthritis. Reinhold Erben was born in Munich, Germany in 1957. Since 2006, he has held the position of Professor of Pathophysiology at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna and since 2004, is Head of the Institute of Pathophysiology, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna where he was also a Guest Professor of Pathophysiology (2004-2006). From 2005-2006 he was Speaker of the Doctoral College “Functional genome research in veterinary medicine” at the University of Munich. Reinhold Erben is President of the International Society of Bone Morphometry and a Board member of the Austrian Science Fund. He has 60 publications in international peer-reviewed journals; 4 book chapters; several patents pending. He has delivered 34 invited speaker lectures including 15 internationally and he currently peer reviews for 34 different journals. He has carried out grant evaluations for 4 international organizations in Germany, UK, Belgium, and Australia and has supervised 32 DVM, MD, and PhD thesis works. David Goltzman is Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Physiology of McGill University, Director of the McGill Centre for Bone and Periodontal Research, and Senior Physician in the Endocrine Division of the McGill University Health Center. His research has focused on the hormonal regulation of calcium and skeletal homeostasis and he has made many important and original contributions to our knowledge of the biology of the hormones, parathyroid hormone related peptide (PTHRP), parathyroid hormone (PTH), calcitonin and vitamin D. These contributions have had major impact on our understanding of a variety of metabolic bone diseases. In recognition of his excellent research he has received various honours and awards and is a past President of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research. Christian Graeff has worked as a Research Associate in the Medical Physics Group at the Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein in Kiel, Germany since 2004. With a background in Biomechanical Engineering, his scientific interests are in developing innovative methods for the diagnosis of osteoporosis. Using quantitative and high-resolution central CT, the aim of his work is to investigate bone quality of the spine and hip beyond BMD, with the help of microstructural analysis, biomechanical strength indices and finite element analysis. Christian Graeff won the Shun-ichi Harada Young Investigator Award of the ASBMR 2007. Dr Himadri Shikhar Gupta (born 1973) holds a degree in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India. Following his doctoral work in non-equilibrium statistical physics at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Erich Schmid Institute of Materials Science of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Leoben, Austria. From 2003 - 2008 he was Staff Scientist in the Department of Biomaterials at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam near Berlin, Germany, working in the field of calcified tissue structure and mechanics. From October 2008 he has held the position of Lecturer in Biomaterials at the School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London, UK. Dr Hans is currently Head of Research and Development at the Bone Disease Center at Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV-DAL), Switzerland and Vice President of the International Society of Clinical Densitometry. He held a similar position during 10 years at the Geneva University Hopsital within the Nucleare Medicine Division, Switzerland. He is also a co-founder of Synarc, Inc, and was the Director of the Quality Assurance Center for Clinical Research and the Associate Director of Research and Development for the ultrasound unit at the Osteoporosis and Arthritis Research Group (OARG) of the University of California San Francisco, San Francisco CA. OARG later became Synarc, Inc. Also, he has held similar positions in Europe at the Centre d’Epidémiologie des Ostéoporoses in Lyon, France. While at d’Epidémiologie des Ostéoporoses, he was Director of the Bone Densitometry and new technologies department, as well as Director of the Quality Control Department. Dr Hans has 19 years of clinical research experience and is recognized as an expert on the cutting edge of Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry (DXA) and Quantitative Ultrasound Systems (QUS) technologies. In 2006 the International Society for Clinical Densitometry (ISCD) awarded him the Clinician of the Year award for distinguished services to the field of bone densitometry. He has particular expertise in validating and optimizing new technologies, as well as, developing DXA and ultrasound protocols, quality assurance and training of research assistants for large, multi-center clinical trials. He has a PhD in Human Biology and Medical Physics with honors and was a recipient of the Young Investigator Award from the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research Annual Meeting in 1995. He also has an MSc with honors in Medical Physics and more recently accomplished an executive MBA with honors from the Hautes Etudes Commercials at Geneva University in Switzerland. He is an active member of eight international societies and advisory boards and continues to teach courses in DXA, Ultrasound and Osteoporosis and lecture around the world. He also serves as a reviewer for seven international scientific journals, has published more than 100 articles and has contributed chapters to over 20 books. Ellen Hauge graduated from the University of Aarhus, Denmark as Doctor of Medicine and with a PhD focussed on postmenopausal osteoporosis. She is now a Senior Consultant in Rheumatology at Aarhus University Hospital. She covers the field of bone biology and has particular expertise on bone histomorphometry. She has presented at national and international conferences and seminars on these topics. Her current research includes basic bone biology, osteoarthritis, and experimental arthritis. Lorenz Hofbauer was born in 1968 in Bavaria, Germany. He studied Medicine at the University of Munich and obtained his MD degree in 1995 in the thyroid field. His interest in bone research was stimulated during a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester under the mentorship of Drs Larry Riggs and Sundeep Khosla from 1996 to 1999. In 1999 he moved to Philipps-University of Marburg, Germany, where he established his own research group focussing on the RANKL/OPG biology in skeletal, malignant, and vascular diseases. In parallel, Dr Hofbauer completed his clinical education in internal medicine, endocrinology, and diabetes with board exams in 2003 and 2004. From 2004 to 2007 he was a Heisenberg Senior Fellow and Consultant in Medicine. Starting in May 2007, he became Head of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Bone Diseases, Department of Medicine III at the University Medical Centre at Technical University of Dresden, Germany. Franz Jakob trained in Human Medicine from 1975-1981 at the University of Wuerzburg, Germany. He specialised in internal medicine, endocrinology and diabetes and became an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine in 1994. In addition, he received basic science training at the Max-Planck-Institute for Experimental Endocrinology in Hannover from 1986 to 1988. He headed research projects on the estrogen receptor in cells of the immune system, on estrogen and vitamin D metabolism and on vitamin D-regulated genes in bone cells. In 2001 he was appointed a full Professor for Experimental and Clinical Osteology at the Orthopaedic Department of Wuerzburg University. He is now heading research at the Orthopaedic Centre for Musculoskeletal Research and at the interdisciplinary Musculoskeletal Centre Wuerzburg MCW. His main research topics are mesenchymal stem cell biology, cellular ageing, metabolic bone diseases and tissue engineering. Shigeaki Kato obtained his PhD in 1988 from the University of Tokyo and became Assistant Professor – to Associate Professor in the Tokyo University of Agriculture from 1988 to 1996. Then, Kato was independent at the Institute of Molecular Cellular Biosciences, the University of Tokyo from 1996, and became Professor in 1998. Professor Kato has received awards from many organizations including the Fuller Albright award from the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research in 1998, and the International prize from the Austrian Society of Bone and Mineral Research. He has also been leading a research group supported by JST, as CREST / SORST (1997-2004), and ERATO (2004~). He is a board member of the Japanese Biochemistry Society, Japanese Society of Molecular Biology, Japanese Society of Endocrinology, as well as International Bone and Mineral Society. He is also serving as an associate editor / editorial board member for several international journals. Douglas Kiel received his BS from Duke University, his MD from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and an MPH in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Boston University School of Public Health. He is currently the Director of Medical Research at Hebrew SeniorLife, and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on the prevention of osteoporotic fractures and musculoskeletal decline. He is the Principal Investigator of the Framingham Osteoporosis Study, and multiple NIH-funded clinical trials to prevent falls, bone loss and fractures in seniors. He has published extensively on falls, osteoporosis and related fractures. He was a contributing author to the Surgeon General’s Report on Bone Health and Osteoporosis and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Clinical Densitometry and the American Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, as well as the Scientific Advisory Committee and the Education Committee of the NOF. He is currently a member of the Council of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research and the Clinical Trials Advisory Panel of the National Institute on Aging. Professor Michael Kühl studied Biochemistry at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. Over the last 15 years his research interests have focussed on the analysis of intracellular Wnt signal transduction pathways. In particular he is interested in the role of these growth factors during embryonic development and cellular differentiation. After his PhD in Berlin he stayed at Ulm University, Germany and University of Washington, Seattle, USA, as a Postdoc before he became an independent junior group leader at Göttingen University, Germany. He is currently a full Professor of Biochemistry at Ulm University and is Chairman of the International Graduate School in Molecular Medicine Ulm. Fanxin Long PhD is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Developmental
Biology at Washington University School of Medicine. His main interest
is in understanding the molecular mechanisms regulating bone formation
and regeneration, with a long-term goal of developing novel therapeutics
to treat osteoporosis. Long began his higher education at Beijing
University, earning a Bachelor's degree in Cell Biology 1988. He
then went on to graduate training in the United States, earning
a Master’s in Molecular Biology from the University of California,
Santa Barbara, in 1992, and his Doctoral degree in Developmental
Biology from Tufts University in 1997. After postdoctoral fellowships
at Harvard University, Long joined the Washington University faculty
in 2002. Over the past several years, his work has established a
framework for understanding how Hh, Wnt and Notch signals sequentially
regulate the progressive formation of osteoblasts - cells chiefly
responsible for making bone. 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. Jack Martin is Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Melbourne and John Holt Fellow at St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research. After being Professor of Chemical Pathology at the University of Sheffield (UK) from 1974 until 1977, he was Professor and Chairman of the University of Melbourne Department of Medicine until 1999. He was Director of St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research from 1988 – 2002. His research has been in bone cell biology, the mechanisms of action of hormones that influence bone and calcium metabolism, intercellular communication in bone and the differentiation of bone cells, and the effects of cancers upon the skeleton. Professor Masud undertook his undergraduate training at Oxford University and St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. After postgraduate training in Newcastle and London, he was appointed Consultant Physician at Nottingham City Hospital in 1994. He was the Clinical Sub-Dean at the Medical School, University of Nottingham from 2001-2007. He has a clinical and research interest in osteoporosis and falls and heads the Clinical Gerontology Research Unit at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. He chairs the British Geriatrics Society’s Education and Training Committee and is a member of the British Geriatrics Society’s Steering Committee of the Special Interest Section of “Falls and Bone Health” and also of the Organising Committee of The Annual International Conference on Falls and Postural Stability. He was previously a Scientific Advisor to the National Osteoporosis Society and was elected as the President of the International Society of Physical Activity for the Prevention of Osteoporosis, Falls and Fractures in 2004. In January 2005 he was appointed as a Visiting Professor of Musculoskeletal Gerontology at the University of Derby. Eugene McCloskey is Senior Lecturer in Metabolic Bone Diseases in the Academic Unit of Bone Metabolism and WHO Collaborating Centre for Metabolic Bone Diseases at the University of Sheffield. Working in the field of calcium and bone disorders since 1986, early interests included osteolytic bone disease leading to the established role for bisphosphonates in multiple myeloma and breast cancer. He has been principal investigator in many clinical studies and published over 120 peer-reviewed publications, book chapters and reviews. He 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 Committee and the ASBMR. Marc McKee is a Professor at McGill University in Montreal in the Faculties of Dentistry and Medicine. He received his BSc and PhD degrees from McGill University in Cell Biology, and after a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Harvard, he held an academic appointment at the University of Montreal, after which he moved to McGill University in 1998. Dr McKee's research focuses on molecular determinants of biomineralization in bones and teeth, and in pathologic calcification as seen in kidney stones, arthritis and vascular calcification. With over 150 published scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings and books, Dr McKee has received two Distinguished Scientist Awards from the International Association for Dental Research – the Young Investigator Award (1996) and the Research in Biological Mineralization Award (2003). He currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute for Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. Radu Mihai graduated in 1991 with MD from Carol Davila University, Bucharest, Romania, where he worked as a University Assistant in Endocrinology before starting a PhD in the Department of Surgery at the University of Bristol (1995-1998), exploring the calcium-controlled exocytosis in human parathyroid cells. He completed his basic surgical training in Bristol (MRCS, 2000) before becoming a Lecturer in Surgery at Bristol University and a Specialist Registrar in General Surgery on the SouthWest rotation (FRCS 2005). After a 2-year Fellowship in Endocrine Surgery he was appointed a Consultant at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK. In 2006 he was awarded the Hunterian Professor of Surgery title from the Royal College of Surgeons and in 2008 passed examination for the European Board in Endocrine Surgery both of which reinforced his interest in combining clinical surgical practice and research. His recent clinical research has concentrated on the improvement in quality of life after parathyroidectomy and the effectiveness of current management protocols for primary hyperparathyroidism. Claes Ohlsson (born 1965) is Professor at the Centre for Bone Research, Institute of Medicine at the Sahlgrenska Academy in Göteborg, Sweden (2000- ). He received his MD in 1990 and his PhD in 1993 both at Göteborg University. He has a board certificate as Physician in Clinical Pharmacology and was a Postgraduate Research Fellow at NIH, Bethesda in 1996-1997. Dr Ohlsson has made several contributions to the field of osteoporosis with a special focus on hormonal regulation of bone growth and metabolism. His research on osteoporosis has a translational profile, combining cell and molecular biology with experimentation on animals and human tissue from patients, as well as epidemiological methods. He is currently Principal Investigator of a research group of in total 20 Postdocs, PhD students and technicians supported by funding from the European Union, the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish Strategic Foundation. In 2006, he received the Scandinavian SALUS-ansvar price in Medicine (Osteoporosis) and in 2008 he received the European Journal of Endocrinology/European Society of Endocrinology prize for “significant contribution to the advancement of knowledge in the field of endocrinology.” He has published 225 original articles in peer-reviewed journals and has been invited speaker to 52 international meetings including the major meetings in endocrinology and osteoporosis. Dr Eleftherios P Paschalis earned a Master’s degree in Physical Chemistry and a PhD degree in Biophysical Sciences from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1993. He spent the next ten years at the Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, employing spectroscopic techniques for the analysis of bone mineral and collagen. He developed spectroscopic parameters describing mineral maturity and collagen cross-links at the microscopic level. He was the first one to apply the recently available technique of Fourier transform Infrared Imaging to the study of bone. In 2003, he joined the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Osteology in Vienna, Austria as a Senior Scientist, heading the Vibrational Spectroscopy section. The main focus of the section’s research efforts is on the elucidation of collagen’s contribution to bone strength. Dr Plotkin is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Indiana University School of Medicine. She obtained her degree in Immunology at the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1996. Dr Plotkin performed postdoctoral training from 1998 to 2002 and was a Faculty member from 2002 to 2008 at the Endocrinology Division, Department of Internal Medicine, and the Center for Osteoporosis and Metabolic Bone Diseases, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). Dr Plotkin’s research focuses on the role of connexin43 as a regulator of intracellular signaling activated by pharmacotherapeutic, hormonal and mechanical stimuli in bone. Her work has been published in Journal of Clinical Investigation, Endocrinology, Cell, Science, Journal of Biological Chemistry, American Journal of Physiology, Journal of Bone and Mineral Research and Bone. Dr Plotkin’s research has been supported by grants from UAMS, the National Osteoporosis Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Kenneth Poole is a practicing Rheumatologist with a special interest in bone disorders. His clinical work is based at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge where he is part of a large bone research group that includes Nigel Loveridge, Paul Mayhew, Jon Power, Juliet Compston and Jonathan Reeve. He gained his PhD from Clare College, Cambridge in 2006 as an MRC Clinical Training Fellow using a broad range of clinical and laboratory bone research techniques. Publications arising from this period included a successful RCT using intravenous bisphosphonates to prevent bone loss after stroke, the identification of vitamin D deficiency as a predictor of stroke, a histomorphometric analysis of bone after stroke and an in vivo study of osteocytes as inhibitors of bone formation (via sclerostin). His review articles have focused on bone loss after stroke, the role of parathyroid hormone in bone anabolism and the management of osteoporosis. As a new Principal Investigator and Arthritis Research Campaign Clinician Scientist, his ongoing research studies focus on the development of novel imaging biomarkers of hip fragility using clinical CT. Joanna Price graduated as a veterinary surgeon from Bristol University in 1983 then spent a number of years in first opinion clinical practice before undertaking her PhD training with Professor Graham Russell on the biology of deer antler regeneration. After two years working as a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellow on bone’s adaptation to mechanical loading in Professor Lance Lanyon’s laboratory, she was awarded a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship to continue with her research on antler regeneration under the mentorship of Professor Mike Horton at University College London. She returned to the Royal Veterinary College in 2000 as a faculty member, was appointed Professor of Veterinary Anatomy in 2005 and was Chair of the College’s Basic Science Department until 2008. Working in collaboration with Lance Lanyon, her current research focuses on mechanically-related functional adaptation in bone, in particular interactions between the oestrogen receptor and other signalling pathways. She also has a long-standing clinical research interest in the pathogenesis and prevention of musculoskeletal injuries in horses. Helen Raphael PhD, MPhil, SRN is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Southampton. Dr Raphael received a PhD in the School of Health Sciences from the University of Southampton for her thesis on men’s experiences of osteoporosis. Her research focuses on primarily health promotion, health education and disease prevention, especially in men. Following on from her study of men’s experiences of osteoporosis, Dr Raphael’s research interest has focused on health problems in men that may be stereotyped so that they are perceived as only relating to women, for example osteoporosis and breast cancer. Ann Schwartz is an Epidemiologist at the University of California San Francisco. Her research is focused on the intersection of osteoporosis and diabetes, particularly the paradox found in type 2 diabetes of increased fracture risk in the presence of higher bone density. She is Principal Investigator of the BONE ancillary study in the Action to Control Cardiovascular Disease in Diabetes (ACCORD) trial of intensive versus standard glycemic control, testing whether fractures, falls and bone loss are reduced with intensive control. In 2006 she published the first observational clinical evidence that thiazolidinedione use is associated with bone loss in women. Other research explores the potential mechanisms for an effect of diabetes on bone, including advanced glycation end products in collagen and possible shifts in marrow stem cell lineage allocation favoring adipocytes over osteoblasts. Her most recent research interest is clinical testing of the finding in rodents that bone affects diabetes via osteocalcin. Dr Dawn Skelton is the Scientific Co-ordinator of ProFaNE (Prevention
of Falls Network Europe) at the University of Manchester, UK and
has recently taken up the post of Reader in Ageing and Health for
HealthQWest at Glasgow Caledonian University. Her background research
has centred on exercise in older people. Her main interests lie
in the prevention of dependence and the prevention of falls. She
is a commissioned author for the World Health Organisation Health
Evidence Network, the Department of Health and is the Scientific
Advisor for the Society for Physical Activity and the Prevention
of Osteoporosis, Falls and Fractures and the British Heart Foundation
National Centre for Physical Activity. She strives also to get research
evidence into practice and is a co-developer of the UK’s only
national, accredited specialist exercise training course for Exercise
in the Prevention of Falls and Injuries, developed for physiotherapists,
exercise instructors and other health and leisure professionals.
David Taylor is Professor of Materials Engineering at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He has a background in materials science from Cambridge University and has developed broad interests in the strength and fracture of materials, including both engineering materials and biological tissues. His four books and 150 journal articles range from fundamental theoretical work - for example in the theory of fracture mechanics and in damage and repair in bone - to practical applications in forensics, engineering design and human-body implants. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, a Director of the Association of Consulting Forensic Engineers and Editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials. Anna Teti is a Full Professor of Histology and Embryology in the School of Biotechnology at the University of L’Aquila, Italy. She completed her PhD in 1977 at the University of Bari School of Biological Science and then worked as Assistant and Associate Professor of Anatomy at the University of Bari (1981-1993) and as Associate and Full Professor of Histology and Embryology, University of L'Aquila (1993-present). Her research interests include bone cell biopathology; metabolic, genetic and cancer-induced bone diseases. Anna has received many awards for her work including the Chemofux Prize, Austrian Society for Bone and Mineral Metabolism, 1991; Prix Andre Lichtwitz, INSERM, 1993; Swiss Bridge Award, Swiss Bridge Foundation, 2008. She has served on the editorial boards of Bone, Calcified Tissue International, Endocrinology, Archives Biochemistry and Biophysics, IBMS Bone Key and has worked as a peer reviewer for more than 40 international journals and 15 grant agencies. Anna is a member of the European Calcified Tissues Society (ECTS), the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR), the International Bone and Mineral Society (IBMS). She has also held various positions within the following organizations: Treasurer for ECTS; a member of the Research Prize Committee, Austrian Society for Bone and Mineral Research; Board of Directors of IBMS (2001-2007); the Award Committee, IBMS; Publications Committee, ASBMR (2002-2005) and Finance Committee, ASBMR. Anna has written and co-authored 137 peer-reviewed papers in international journals. Frans van den Beemt PhD has researched study evaluation at international level and has a Master’s degree in Physics and a Doctorate in the field of Research Assessment. He has served 18 years within The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and from the beginning he has studied why applications were granted or rejected in relation to the underlying assessment system. During the last ten years he has established his own independent advice office to help principal investigators obtain research grants after earlier rejections www.HandsonGrants.eu . He started as a one man firm VdBeemt 2G Advies and last year founded HandsonGrants where he works with a team of five trainers/ advisers / coaches. Direct from the first call for the ERC Starting Grant in early 2007, Frans organised workshops within the Dutch universities in Amsterdam and Leiden. Based on the success of these events, further workshops in Utrecht, Tilburg and Rotterdam followed. Dirk Vanderschueren is Full Professor of Medicine and Endocrinology at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He obtained his PhD in 1994. His thesis was entitled ‘Skeletal effects of androgen deficiency, resistance and replacement.’ He is also a clinical endocrinologist (MD 1984 - Head of clinic) at the Leuven University Hospital with special expertise in both metabolic bone disease and andrological endocrinology. Since 1998, he has also been a Senior Clinical Researcher of the Flemish Fund for scientific research with special interest in sex steroids action male skeleton. Dirk Vanderschueren is an author of more than 150 peer review manuscripts including high impact journals. He is a well recognised international expert in bone research as evidenced by many invited lectures at the most prestigious international conferences. Dirk Vanderschueren receives research grants from both the Leuven University and the Flemish fund for scientific research. He is also a partner in a European community sponsored European Male Ageing Study. He coordinates the study of muscle and bone outcome parameters in this large epidemiological study on male ageing. Therefore, Dirk Vanderschueren has extensive experience on sex steroid action in bone in (both translational and epidemiological) research as well as clinical practice. Following school and university education in Austria, Erwin Wagner obtained his PhD in 1978 for studies on the regulation of gene expression during bacterial T1 infection. Following a brief postdoctoral training in Innsbruck he joined the laboratory of Beatrice Mintz at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia in 1979, where he obtained training in the genetic control of mouse development by developing microinjection of DNA into fertilized eggs and gene transfer technologies into stem cells and mice. After spending four productive years in Philadelphia, he became a Group Leader at the EMBL in Heidelberg in 1983, where he stayed until 1988 before joining as a Senior Scientist and founding member the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria. Erwin Wagner stayed 20 years at the IMP heading a senior research group working on gene functions in mammalian development and oncogenesis and has been Deputy Director of the IMP from 1997- 2008. During 2008 he moved with his lab to the CNIO in Madrid, where he holds the position of Vice Director and Director of the newly founded Cancer Cell Biology Program. His major research focus is the analyses of the AP- 1 (Fos/Jun) transcription factor complex, which plays essential roles in development, differentiation and oncogenesis. Various transgenic mouse models for common human diseases were generated in his lab, such as for inflammation and cancer, but also for the analysis of molecular pathways leading to diseases, such as psoriasis and fibrosis. Richard Weinkamer is currently Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany. He holds an MSc in Mathematics and a PhD in Physics (University of Vienna, Austria; Rutgers University, USA). His principal research interests are in computational mechanobiology to investigate the influence of mechanical forces on maintenance and healing processes in living biological materials. Computational work on bone include the influence of the remodeling and mineralization processes on the heterogeneous mineral content of bone material (together with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, Vienna), the structural adaptation of the architecture of trabecular bone, and the mechanobiological modeling of bone fracture healing (together with the Charité, Berlin). Michael Whyte MD is Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, and Genetics at Washington University School of Medicine and Medical-Scientific Director of the Center for Metabolic Bone Disease and Molecular Research at Shriners Hospital for Children in St Louis, Missouri. Dr Whyte earned his MD degree at Downstate College of Medicine, Brooklyn, New York and then had internship and residency training in Internal Medicine at Bellevue Hospital in New York City before spending two years as Clinical Associate at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. After fellowship in The Division of Bone and Mineral Diseases, he joined the faculty of Washington University School of Medicine. Dr Whyte’s research interests include the cause and treatment
of heritable metabolic bone diseases in children and adults. Among
these are hypophosphatasia, X-linked hypophosphatemia, osteogenesis
imperfecta, and conditions that cause dense bones such as osteopetrosis.
Laboratory investigations include mapping of diseases on human chromosomes
and then searches for mutated genes. Molecular findings are then
related to clinical observations to better understand how these
conditions manifest. The Research Center at Shriners Hospital serves
as a national resource for diagnosis, treatment, and investigation
of disorders of bone and mineral metabolism and skeletal dysplasias
in children. Dr Whyte has authored or coauthored more than 290 scientific
papers or book chapters. Toshiyuki Yoneda DDS, PhD is a Professor of Biochemistry at Osaka University Graduate School of Dentistry (1997- ) and the Hyeser Professor of Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine at University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (2001- ). Dr Yoneda graduated from Osaka University Faculty of Dentistry, earning DDS in 1972. He obtained a PhD in Biochemistry at Osaka University Graduate School of Dentistry in 1976 and then worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Connecticut Health Center (1977-1979) and NIDR (1979-1980). He was Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the Medical Research Institute at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (2002-2003). His major interest has been to understand the molecular mechanism of cancer metastasis to bone with a long-term goal of furthering the development of mechanism-based specific treatment for bone metastasis. In addition, over the last several years he has been studying the molecular mechanism of bone pain due to cancer metastasis to and colonization in bone. Dr. Joseph Zerwekh is the Frederic C. Bartter Professor of Vitamin D Research in Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. He received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Arizona under the tutelage of Dr Mark Haussler and then joined the Mineral Metabolism group at UT Southwestern under the directorship of Dr Charles Pak MD. His initial research interests were directed in the area of urolithiasis and vitamin D metabolism but this soon expanded to include metabolic bone disease, especially postmenopausal osteoporosis. He currently performs all the bone biopsy analyses at his institution as well as other histological methods including immunohistochemistry. He has written or co-authored 145 peer-reviewed scientific papers including the first description of bisphosphonate-induced severe suppression of bone turnover. He has served as an ad hoc reviewer for the NIH on numerous occasions. He is currently the Director of the CLIA approved stone risk and bone histomorphometry laboratories. His current research interests include male osteoporosis, estrogen effects on renal calcium handling, and development of an animal model to study bisphosphonate-induced severe suppression of bone turnover. Elisabeth Zwettler studied Medicine and Sports Sciences at the University of Vienna and received her MD in 1986. She was trained in Internal Medicine with specialization in endocrinology and metabolism. She is responsible for the Osteoporosis Outpatient Unit at Hanusch Hospital (HH), Vienna and collaborates scientifically with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Osteology. Since 2006 she has held the position of Deputy Head of the 4th Medical Department at Hanusch Hospital. During the summer of 2008 she visited the Program of Clinical Effectiveness at Harvard School of Public Health, Boston. Her main interest lies in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with endocrine bone disorders and the focus of her work is on postdoctoral training, quality control, as well as, multidisciplinary approaches to patient care. After gaining an MSc in Engineering Physics at the Ecole Polytechnique
Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 1987, Philippe Zysset
contributed to the R&D of unicondylar knee prosthesis within
the company Protek. In 1989, he became Research Fellow at Harvard
University to investigate the mechanical properties of trabecular
bone. Following his return to EPFL in 1991, he undertook his doctoral
thesis in solid mechanics. He earned his PhD on a constitutive law
for trabecular bone in May 1994. He then moved to Ann Arbor to take
up a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Michigan, where
he broadened his knowledge in orthopedic research. Back again at
EPFL in 1997 as an Assistant Professor in solid biomechanics, he
pursued his research on structure-function relationship of bone
tissue in cooperation with medical faculty. In August 2003, he was
appointed Professor of Biomechanics at the Vienna University of
Technology, where he founded a laboratory for nano- and micromechanics
of biological and bio-mimetic tissues, promoted novel research activities
in computational biomechanics and initiated a Master Program in
Biomedical Engineering. |
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