Endocrinology congress comes to a close
6 November, 2000
The 11th International Endocrinology Congress came to a close in Sydney last week, with a record number of 160 international speakers and 3,300 full registrants attending.
‘With such a huge number of international speakers, all experts in their respective fields, it is difficult to pinpoint any one speaker as a highlight,’ President of the Endocrine Society of Australia, Associate Professor Ray Rodgers said.
He did, however, choose two as being very popular and interesting. The first was Professor Lord Robert Winston, the fertility and IVF pioneer whose TV series ‘The Human Body’ has won numerous awards. Lord Winston has been at the forefront of perhaps the most exciting medical developments of the past 20 years – developments that have raised fears, among some, of designer babies and cloning of humans.
Lord Winston made his name by pioneering improvements to surgery of the fallopian tubes, and developed techniques for reversing sterilisation. His current research includes work on transgenic technology and the screening of pre-implantation embryos for genes that cause cancer in young people. He is also working on maturing eggs from the ovary outside the body, which is expected to cut the cost of IVF techniques by 80 per cent.
Lord Winston is Professor of Fertility Studies at the Imperial College School of Medicine, London University, and the author of some 300 scientific publications.
He is now working on Superhuman, an ambitious 20-year project for the BBC that will follow a group of babies from womb to adulthood in an attempt to explore the effect on them of nurture over nature.
‘My other choice would have to be Professor Iain Robinson of London’s National Institute for Medical Research, for his work identifying a strain of rats that mirror the onset of middle-age spread that is common in human males,’ Associate Professor Rodgers said.
The rats are known as SLOB rats because they show severe late-onset obesity, although Professor Robinson says their large abdomens also make them look 'like slobs'.
'Most obesity models in animals are from them eating huge amounts of fatty food and they store the fat all over. With these rats, they don’t just put on fat all over their body, they accumulate it around the abdomen and only later in life,' said Professor Robinson.
'It is the same pattern that we know as the beer gut in middle aged men,' he said. 'And the fat accumulation pattern of some post-menopausal women is the same pattern as the female rats.'
By studying how this happens and applying different treatments and drugs, scientists hope to be able to help both prevent men from getting the middle-aged spread and to treat men who have already succumbed.
'It is very exciting. The middle-aged spread leads to heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and strokes. If we can learn how to prevent it or treat it, it will stop many people dying prematurely,' Professor Robinson said.
‘Feedback from delegates has been excellent; we were able to cover the spectrum of endocrinology, with subjects from brain research to fertility to the latest discovery of a genetic link to chronic fatigue,’ said Associate Professor Rodgers.
‘We believe we succeeded in our intention to showcase endocrinology in Australia. As a discipline, we perhaps have not had a particularly high profile, but I believe that with the calibre of speakers at this Congress and the scientists and clinicians we have in Australia, that will change,’ he added.
Last Reviewed: 06 November 2000
