A meeting of the Southampton Medical Society was held on the 1st November 2023. This meeting was held at lunchtime.
The President was in the chair. The minutes of the last meeting were approved.
The President introduced our speaker, Prof. Cyrus Cooper who spoke to the title “Four Decades in Clinical Academia here in Southampton - a wonderful journey”.
Prof Cooper started by telling us that he started in Southampton with a ‘house job’ and has been here ever since. He graduated from the University of Cambridge and St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London in 1980, and in 1985 took up an SHO position at the Southampton General Hospital. He became interested in rheumatology and joined the MRC Environmental Unit, first under Professor Sir Donald Acheson and later Professor David Barker, and became interested in osteoporosis. In1990, he won an MRC Travelling Fellowship to the Mayo Clinic, USA, where he continued his research into osteoporosis. He returned to the UK in 1992 to take up a position as Senior Lecturer in Rheumatology and MRC Senior Clinical Scientist. He was promoted to the Foundation Chair in Rheumatology at the University of Southampton in 1997 while continuing as an MRC Senior Clinical Scientist at the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit. In 2003, he was appointed Director of the MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre, University of Southampton. In 2010, this was reconfigured as the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit and funding was extended to 2015. Professor Cooper leads an internationally competitive programme of research into the epidemiology of musculoskeletal disorders. He is particularly interested in the strategic future of osteoarthritis and osteoporosis.
Prof Cooper outlined the history of these conditions starting with Hippocrates in 400BC. He discussed the diagnosis and prevention of these conditions in view of the burden they place on society. He said that there were developmental origins to osteoporosis and a low bone density is found in children of mothers with low vitamin D levels. Vitamin D supplements during pregnancy are important, especially during winter, and improvements in childhood bone density have been demonstrated as a result. He has been the leader of large randomised controlled trials of calcium and vitamin D supplementation as preventative strategies against hip fracture in the elderly.
He finished his talk saying that in 2021 the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit funding was made secure until 2026.
The President then thanked Professor Cooper for his fascinating biography and his helpfulness to the local medical community as well. There was prolonged applause from a grateful audience.