The Mellanby Centre for Musculoskeletal Research was set up at the University of Sheffield 16 years ago, and we held the annual research day at The Edge in March 2025. Richard Eastell is the Director of the Centre, and he opened the meeting by explaining its strategic importance. The Centre has been the basis for grant success, and he pointed to the success achieved over the past year. The opening speaker was Dr Alanna Green of the University of Sheffield. She recently received Wellcome and YCR funding to investigate the targeting of cancer dormancy in the bone microenvironment. Professor Tonia Vincent from the University of Oxford spoke about the molecular pathogenesis of osteoarthritis, and she provided evidence against there being subtypes of osteoarthritis. Ashley Cole from Sheffield Children’s Hospital described the British Spine Registry, and we heard of his plans for clinical trials in scoliosis, his current interest being the use of braces applied just at night. Dr Adam Galloway is a clinical academic physiotherapist from the University of Leeds, and he described the treatment of Perthes’ disease with the help of digital self-management using the NON-STOP app. Dr Scott Roberts is from the Royal Veterinary College at the University of London, and he described leveraging wnt inhibitors towards a therapy for sclerosteosis. Finally, Dr Vee San Cheong from the University of Sheffield talked about predictive models of implant osteointegration. The audience fed back that they enjoyed the variety of topics and the range of presenters from professors to students.
We held snap poster presentations for the eighth time, as this is a popular format. They were one-minute presentations on why someone should attend the poster, and we applied this approach to all our posters. We awarded a prize for the snap presentations to Diane Lefley and Thomas Valerio. Ilona Bognar and Diane Lefley won the best poster presentations, and two medical students, Matthew Bellamy and Orrin Day, won the best oral presentations.
