Professor Cyrus Cooper OBE

Cyrus Cooper is Professor of Musculoskeletal Science at the University of Oxford and Director of the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit at the University of Southampton.

He is a long-term contributor at the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences, having previously served as Norman Collisson Chair of Musculoskeletal Science and Director of the Institute of Musculoskeletal Sciences at Oxford. He leads an internationally competitive programme of research into the epidemiology of musculoskeletal disorders, most notably osteoporosis.

His key research contributions have been:

• discovery of the developmental influences which contribute to the risk of osteoporosis and hip fracture in late adulthood;
• demonstration that maternal vitamin D insufficiency is associated with sub-optimal bone mineral accrual in childhood;
• characterisation of the definition and incidence rates of vertebral fractures;
• leadership of large pragmatic randomised controlled trials of calcium and vitamin D supplementation in the elderly as immediate preventative strategies against hip fracture.

He is Chairman of the Committee of Scientific Advisors, International Osteoporosis Foundation; Chair of the MRC Population Health Sciences Research Network; Vice Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton Medical School; and Associate Editor of Osteoporosis International.

He has published extensively (over 650 research papers) on osteoporosis and rheumatic disorders and pioneered clinical studies on the developmental origins of peak bone mass.