Professor Jim Triffitt

Recent research has defined the characteristics of the stem cells of bone and related tissues and the biological factors controlling bone tissue formation and turnover in normal and pathological conditions.

Current work is supported by the Wellcome Trust, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Sarah Cameron Fund. He leads a team of scientists developing new methods for improving skeletal healing by stem cell therapy and genetic engineering. Research includes studies on the basic principles for tissue engineering of skeletal tissues and on the changes that occur in bone development and metabolism in common diseases such as osteoporosis and rare diseases such as fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP).

Professor Triffitt's first degree was in Biochemistry at Liverpool University where he also gained his PhD. He has worked in the USA for two extended periods, working on calcium metabolism with Professor Bill Neuman at the University of Rochester, New York and on bone morphogenesis with Professor Marshall Urist at the University of California at Los Angeles.

He joined the scientific staff of the Medical Research Council in 1966 and in 1992 he became the Head of the MRC Bone Research Laboratory at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre. In 1994 he became University Research Lecturer and in 2000 he was awarded the title of Professor of Bone Metabolism.