The Mellanby Centre for Musculoskeletal Research was set up at the University of Sheffield 15 years ago, and we held the annual research day at Inox Dine in March 2024. Richard Eastell is the Director of the Centre, and he opened the meeting by explaining the strategic importance of the Centre. The Centre has been the basis for grant success, and he pointed to the success achieved over the past year.
The opening speaker was Professor Jonathan Stevenson from Birmingham Orthopaedic Hospital. He described orthopaedic surgery treating cancer patients and the move from amputation for bone tumours to the use of limbsalvage surgery.
Dr Shelly Lawson from the University of Sheffield spoke about the myeloma-induced bone disease: bone anabolic therapy and new insights into the role of osteocytes gained using the synchrotron radiation CT using the Swiss Light Source.
Professor Claire Brocket from University of Sheffield spoke about treating and preventing ankle osteoarthritis, pointing to the importance of injury as a cause and the improvements needed to make ankle replacement surgery as successful as that for the hip.
Professor Nick Bishop from the University of Sheffield spoke about life in paediatric bone disease, talking about his contribution to aluminium being removed from intravenous nutrition (after a delay of 25 years), the development of treatments for the inherited bone disease osteogenesis imperfecta with the first randomised controlled trial, and his contribution to the development of an enzyme replacement therapy for hypophosphatasia (a lifesaving treatment). He will become a Mellanby Lifelong Member.
Professor Mark Wilkinson from the University of Sheffield, who told us about the importance of maintaining a musculoskeletal biobank, has been to his work on osteoarthritis and how he is using this to study single-cell RNA sequencing to understand its cause better.
Professor Stuart Ralston from the University of Edinburgh told us about an exciting trial he recently published, showing that if Paget’s bone disease can be captured early, it can be prevented using zoledronate infusions.
We held snap poster presentations for the seventh time as these are a popular format. They were one-minute presentations on why someone should attend the poster presentations, and this year, we applied the approach to all our posters. We awarded a prize for the snap presentations to Tatiane Vilaca, who presented in exactly 60 seconds.
Joseph Snuggs and Lucy Dascombe won the best poster presentations, and Alex Sprules and Andrea Nüesch won the best oral presentations.
