Oxford professor is first non-US winner of bone research award
29 Sep 09
Research on inherited disorders of bone metabolism – a group of diseases including some cancers, kidney stones and rickets – has led to Professor Rajesh V Thakker becoming the first non-American to receive the Founder’s Award from the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research.
The 2009 Louis V Avioli Founder’s Award for fundamental contributions to bone and mineral basic research was presented to Professor Thakker at the society’s annual meeting in Denver, Colorado.
Professor Thakker is the May Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Somerville College. His research in the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism (OCDEM) is aimed at determining the causes of inherited bone and mineral metabolism conditions and developing treatments for these diseases, which include cancers of the hormone and endocrine system, over- or under-activity of the parathyroid gland, and rickets.
His work has led to the detailed characterization of over 12 disorders of bone and mineral metabolism from the genetic and molecular level to clinical studies. In particular, his research group has demonstrated that abnormalities in ‘junk’ DNA – regions of DNA that don’t encode proteins – can cause disease, a feature that may be significant in the molecular basis of other inherited diseases.