Email: r.eastell@sheffield.ac.uk

Research profile and key clinical specialties

Richard’s research focus is osteoporosis.

The University of Sheffield is well regarded for its contribution to the study of osteoporosis. According to Thomson Reuter’s Science Watch, they are ranked fourth among academic centres in the world for citations.

He studies epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of the disease. This has involved developing and establishing assays for bone turnover markers and studying their clinical utility.

He has developed new approaches to the definition of vertebral fracture and applied new approaches such as vertebral fracture assessment. He has developed tools to evaluate bone strength such as high-resolution quantitative computed tomography, ultrasound and finite element modelling of bone strength.

He has evaluated the endocrine changes in osteoporosis to better understand its causes. He has designed and conducted clinical trials of nutrition and drugs for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis and evaluated approaches to enhance compliance with treatment.

Two key publications

• Sestak I, Singh S, Cuzick J, Blake GM, Patel R, Gossiel F, Coleman R, Dowsett M, Forbes JF, Howell A, Eastell R. Changes in bone mineral density at 3 years in postmenopausal women receiving anastrozole and risedronate in the IBIS-II bone substudy: an international, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial. Lancet Oncol. 2014 Dec;15(13):1460-8. Epub 2014 Nov 11. Erratum in: Lancet Oncol. 2014 Dec;15(13):e587.
• Yang L, Palermo L, Black DM, Eastell R. Prediction of incident hip fracture with the estimated femoral strength by finite element analysis of DXA Scans in the study of osteoporotic fractures. J Bone Miner Res. 2014 Dec;29(12):2594-600. Professor Richard Eastell

Possible PhD projects

• The role of circulating bone regulatory factors and microRNA in the pathophysiology of osteoporosis.

More information

Supervision of 2 clinical and 2 non-clinical PhD students Teaches on the CIMA MRES course and provide research projects. Previously member of EME and PSCSB MRC grant boards which allows Richard to provide excellent training in grant writing skills and career advice.

Keywords: Osteoporosis, epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, vertebral, fracture, tomography, endocrine, Richard, Eastell, Sheffield

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