Professor receives prestigious prize from leading pancreatology organisation

The Council of the International Association of Pancreatology (IAP) has awarded the 2022 Palade Prize and Medal to Professor Ole Petersen CBE FRS, in recognition of his “outstanding research contribution to pancreatology”.

As well as his contributions to the field of pancreatology, the Palade Prize recognises Professor Petersen for “being an excellent role model and revered mentor to a large number of clinicians and researchers over many decades”.

Professor Petersen said: “It is a great honour to have been awarded the IAP Palade Prize. In George Palade’s Nobel Prize Lecture (published in Science in 1975), he referred to work of mine (published in the Journal of Physiology in 1973) that provided early evidence for calcium-mediated control of exocrine pancreatic secretion.

“Since then, I have been lucky enough, together with a large number of outstanding collaborators from around the world, to be able to work out the mechanism by which calcium ions regulate normal pancreatic secretion, but also been able to show that excessive calcium signal generation evokes acute pancreatitis.

“This human disease is a precursor to chronic pancreatitis which, in turn, is often a precursor to pancreatic cancer. My group has provided the first evidence for calcium channel inhibition as a potential therapy for acute pancreatitis. Clinical trials are now in progress in the US to test this treatment.”

The Secretary General of the IAP, Dr Pramod Garg, Professor of Gastroenterology at the All India Institute of Medical Research in New Delhi, said: “IAP bestows this award on an individual for his/her original and impactful research contribution to pancreatology. I have been personally impressed with Professor Petersen’s seminal work on calcium signalling in the pathophysiology of acute pancreatitis; so have been many others around the world. It is only befitting that IAP has decided to honour Professor Petersen for his consistent contribution.”

The Palade Medal and Prize was presented to Professor Petersen at the Joint IAP Conference with the Japanese Pancreatic Society, held in Kyoto from July 7- 9 2022, where Professor Petersen also delivered the state-of-the-art Palade Prize Lecture.

Named after George E Palade, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1974 for his work on protein trafficking in the pancreatic acinar cells, the Palade Prize is the most distinguished IAP award. It recognises excellence in pancreatic research, particularly for deciphering basic mechanisms of pancreatic physiology and disease pathophysiology.