Distinguished Professor Ian Reid is an endocrinologist with research interests in calcium metabolism, osteoporosis and Paget’s disease. He has published extensively on calcium nutrition, vitamin D, and bone-active pharmaceuticals, particularly bisphosphonates. He is also Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland.
Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences
Bone and Joint Research Group
Professor Jillian Cornish PhD leads the Cell and Molecular Bone/Joint Biology Research Group in Department of Medicine, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Jill’s group investigates peptides and lipids that are anabolic to bone cells, cartilage and tendon cells for which they hold international patents. The group has established numerous in vitro and in vivo models in skeletal biology and developed a keen interest in skeletal regenerative medicine.
Jill has sat on the boards of the International Bone and Mineral Society, International Bone Morphometry Society, Osteoporosis New Zealand and is a past-president of Australian and New Zealand Bone and Mineral Society.
Associate Professor Andrew Grey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Auckland. He trained in Endocrinology in Auckland, and then undertook post-doctoral fellowships in metabolic bone disease at University of Auckland (clinical studies) and Yale University (laboratory science).
Currently, he practices as a consultant endocrinologist and is co-principal Investigator in the Bone and Joint Research Group. His research activities include cell biology, preclinical and clinical studies of metabolic bone diseases.
David Musson is a Research Fellow in the Bone and Joint Research Group, working on tendon and bone research, with an orthopaedic focus.
Dr Musson obtained his PhD from the University of Birmingham (UK), studying the role of adrenomedullin in dental development. During this time he established contact with the Auckland Bone and Joint Research Group as they led a project studying the activity of adrenomedullin in bone. After completing his PhD he spent a year in industry working for GlaxoSmithKline, which provided an insight into non-academic life, but reaffirmed his desire for academic research.
In 2011 Dr Musson moved to New Zealand to join the Auckland Bone and Joint Research Group and continue his pathway into academia. His current research interests include understanding musculoskeletal cell and tissue mechanobiology, improving healing of tendon and bone, and understanding the pathology of tendon and bone disease. He is heavily involved in the Regenerative Medicine Flagship of the MedTech CoRE, working with materials/bioengineering colleagues as well as orthopaedic surgeons in New Zealand, USA and in Europe. Locally he sits on the School of Medicine Research Committee and internationally he is on the committee of the Australia and New Zealand Orthopaedic Research Society.
Professor Nicola Dalbeth is an academic rheumatologist who leads an internationally-recognized research programme in gout. Her work focuses on understanding the impact and mechanisms of disease in advanced gout. Her clinical research includes clinical trials, imaging studies (using plain radiographs, MRI and three-dimensional CT modeling to analyze joint damage in gout), studies to investigate the functional impact of gout, and validation of outcome measures in gout. The laboratory work in the Auckland Bone and Joint Research Laboratory involves investigating the cellular and molecular mechanisms of joint damage in gout.
She has served as an Expert Panel member on the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Gout Management Guidelines, and is a steering committee member for the Outcome Measures in Rheumatology (OMERACT) gout group and the ACR/European League Against Rheumatism gout classification project.
Associate Professor Mark Bolland is the lead investigator of the Prevzol study. He is an emerging researcher who has already been awarded six research grants/fellowships, including a 2012 HRC project grant (12/147) and a 2010 HRC Sir Charles Hercus Health Research Scholarship. He has been the principal investigator for several smaller clinical trials. Within ten years of commencing his PhD, he has co-authored approximately 200 publications, many of which have appeared in major internal medicine and/or endocrine or bone journals.
Dr Anne Horne is a Research Fellow who has oversight of the osteoporosis, gout and Pagets clinical studies and is responsible for the ADHB bone density scanning contract. She is based in the Clinical Research Centre at the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences.
Ashika Chhana completed her BSc (Hons) project investigating anabolic factors for the treatment of osteoporosis in the Bone & Joint Research Group under the supervision of Dr Dorit Naot and Professor Jill Cornish in 2007. She then carried out her PhD under the supervision of Professor Nicola Dalbeth researching the cellular mechanisms of joint damage in gouty arthritis, graduating in 2014.
Ashika is currently a Rutherford post-doctoral research fellow within the group researching why uric acid crystals form in patients with gout and how this crystallisation process is affected by articular cartilage.