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03-01-05
By Mark Floyd, 541-737-0788
SOURCES: Tony Wilcox, 541-737-2643
Russ Turner, 541-737-9545
CORVALLIS, Ore. - The new director of Oregon State University's Bone Research Laboratory is an internationally recognized expert on osteoporosis from the Mayo Clinic and Medical School in Minnesota.
 Russell T. Turner Click on image to go to downloadable photo |
Turner says he was attracted to OSU's College of Health and Human Sciences because of its holistic program blending nutrition and a healthy lifestyle in the study of human health and disease prevention, and the university's mission to share research results through the OSU Extension Service.
"I spent 30 years studying drug intervention for disease and while that's very important, I'm frankly more interested in focusing on the prevention of diseases," Turner said. "It is easier and more effective - and more cost-effective - to prevent diseases than to cure them once they strike.
"OSU is the ideal environment for investigating the prevention of diseases and communicating those efforts to the public," he added. "The university is developing the infrastructure in terms of people to make a difference."
Turner will direct the Bone Research Laboratory in OSU's College of Health and Human Sciences, and expand the work of former director Christine Snow, whose studies emphasized the effect of high-impact exercise on bone mass. Through Snow and other faculty, OSU will continue that work and expand the laboratory to look at bone health at the cellular level.
Anthony Wilcox, who chairs the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Sciences in the college, said Turner's appointment is a coup.
"He is one of the top scholars in the area of bone histomorphology and bone biology in the world," Wilcox said. "We will have the ability to conduct research on bone health from the molecular to the community level, which is truly unique."
The college plans to hire additional faculty in its expansion of the bone research program.
Turner has focused his study of bone health on pharmacology and drug intervention. For the past 17 years, he has been a researcher in the Department of Orthopedics at the Mayo Medical School where he directed the Bone Histomorphometry Laboratory and the Biochemistry Laboratory.
"People ask me what I do and I say, 'create diseases,'" Turner said. "We do it through computer modeling, in cultured cells, in animals and we study them in natural conditions. The whole purpose is to create a model for human disease that is as close as possible to actual human disease - and then find out how to prevent it."
While most people are generally aware of osteoporosis, Turner pointed out, few recognize the different forms of the disease - which saps bone mass and strength - and the different causes for it. Of the four most common types of osteoporosis, the post-menopausal kind is, perhaps, most widely recognized - a function of aging, hormonal deficiencies and lifestyle choices.
Turner also studies other forms of osteoporosis, including "disuse" osteoporosis, in which a lack of physical activity leads to bone loss. Causes range from nerve damage to being bedridden to space flights. One of his ongoing grants is from NASA.
"In some cases, like paraplegia, studying the effects on bone is complicated because it can be hard to tell if someone's condition is linked to a lack of physical activity, or the underlying disease," Turner said. "Astronauts, though, are inherently healthy or they wouldn't be in space. So the lack of activity directly affects bone health."
Turner also has studied inflammation-related osteoporosis, often caused by arthritis or hyperthyroidism, and cancer-related osteoporosis. Some cancers metastasize the bone, Turner points out, and can cause fractures or excruciating pain.
He also brings to OSU a grant from the Department of Defense studying the effect of alcohol consumption on bone healing rates. The National Institutes of Health fund some of Turner's related research, which investigates the beneficial as well as detrimental effects of consuming alcohol.
Prior to joining the Mayo staff in 1988, Turner was on the faculty of Loma Linda University in California, the Medical University of South Carolina, and the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Note to Editors: The Department of Nutrition and Exercise Sciences is a merger of two former departments that is part way through the approval process.