Richard Pearson
Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences
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Biography
Dr Pearson has extensive experience of working within cross-disciplinary research groups involving biomedical scientists, surgeons, physiotherapists, engineers and pharmacists. This commenced with his PhD studies which were conducted whilst enrolled at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre in Biomedical Materials, Queen Mary (Profs Lee and Bader), under an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Health, CASE award with Smith & Nephew GRC York. His doctoral research was conducted at the laboratories of the Institute of Orthopaedics, UCL, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore. Dr Pearson moved to a post doctoral research post at the University of Nottingham where he joined Professor Kevin Shakesheff's group. He focused on two consecutive BBSRC funded research funded projects the first studying peripheral nerve regeneration and the second a potential treatment for the treatment of spinal cord lesions. He then moved to where he holds a Senior Research Fellow post in the clinical Division of Orthopaedic & Accident Surgery where he conducts the majority of his research with the Head of Division, Prof Scammell.
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Teaching Summary
His teaching and lecturing at the University is to postgraduate students within the Taught course - Translation PhD framework (nTRANS) lecture on "Ethics - Human Tissue and Research Governance". He… read more
Research Summary
In 2011 Dr Pearson published in a leading journal within the field of Orthopaedics, Osteoarthritis & Cartilage, on the histological assessment of osteoarthritic cartilage and subchondral bone. He… read more
Recent Publications
PEARSON, R G, KURIEN, T, SHU, K S S and SCAMMELL, B E, 2011. Histopathology grading systems for characterisation of human knee osteoarthritis--reproducibility, variability, reliability, correlation, and validity. Osteoarthritis and cartilage / OARS, Osteoarthritis Research Society. 19(3), 324-31 SAGAR, DR, BURSTON, JJ, HATHWAY, GJ, WOODHAMS, SG, PEARSON, RG, BENNETT, AJ, KENDALL, DA, SCAMMELL, BE and CHAPMAN, V, 2011. The Contribution Of Spinal Glial Cells To Chronic Pain Behaviour In The Monosodium Iodoacetate Model Of Osteoarthritic Pain Molecular Pain. 7(1), 88 SAGAR DR, STANIASZEK LE, OKINE BN, WOODHAMS S, NORRIS LM, PEARSON RG, GARLE MJ, ALEXANDER SP, BENNETT AJ, BARRETT DA, KENDALL DA, SCAMMELL BE, CHAPMAN V., 2010. Tonic modulation of spinal hyperexcitability by the endocannabinoid receptor system in a rat model of osteoarthritis pain. Arthritis and Rheumatism. 62(12), 3666-3676 RICHARDSON, R, PEARSON, RG, KURIAN, N, LATIF, ML, GARLE, MJ, BARRETT, DA, KENDALL, DA, SCAMMELL, BE, REEVE, AJ and CHAPMAN, V., 2008. Characterisation of the cannabinoid receptor system in synovial tissue and fluid in patients with osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis Research & Therapy. 10(2), R43
Current Research
In 2011 Dr Pearson published in a leading journal within the field of Orthopaedics, Osteoarthritis & Cartilage, on the histological assessment of osteoarthritic cartilage and subchondral bone. He has peer-reviewed subsequent complementary research for the same journal. His research interest in osteoarthritis has also involved studies focussing on the pain associated with the disease and has resulted in several recent basic science publications (Prof Scammell and Prof Chapman, UoN). This research has led to his involvement with the Arthritis Research UK Nottingham Pain Centre (Prof Walsh), where he currently leads a project involving students from the MSc in Sports and Exercise Medicine (Dr Edwards) on the attenuation through exercise of deep pressure pain thresholds in human subjects measured using Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST).
A recent research focus has examined the specific bone pathology of the Charcot foot, associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy, a disease that can lead to amputation of the foot. This work is in collaboration with Prof Scammell (OAS) and Professor Jeffcoate and Dr Game at the Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) Diabetic Foot Unit. He presented these research findings in 2011 at the British Orthopaedic Research Society (Cambridge, UK) for which he holds membership, and the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (Lisbon, Portugal).
Currently he is co-supervising an orthopaedic academic clinical research fellow (ACF) with Prof Scammell the Head of the Division of Orthopaedic & Accident Surgery and Dr Ahmad (UoN Faculty of Engineering), in a PhD concerning the development of bioresorbable plates for use in the treatment of distal radius fractures. This is part of a collaboration with Prof Rudd (UoN) and those involved in and NIHR-HTD project. My interest within this programme is in determining changes in bone structure, using histopathology and nanoPET-CT thereby identifying the capacity of the novel plate to facilitate osteotomy union whilst identifying evoked changes to the plated bone.
The latest research venture targets the potential for a novel formulation of parathyroid hormone in the treatment of osteoporosis. This utilises the latest imaging platform at the University of Nottingham (Prof Perkins). The research's translational nature is highlighted by the fact that it is being conducted within a collaboration with Critical Pharmaceuticals (Dr Lewis) a University of Nottingham spin-out company based at Nottingham's BioCity. This research has received funded through a prestigious Technology Strategy Board grant.
In addition to his research into orthopaedic and bone biology themed projects one of particular note aims to advance cochlear implant technology. Again this is a highly collaborative project with Dr A Mallick (UoN/NUH), Prof Shakesheff (Pharmacy, UoN), Prof O'Donaghue (NUH Department of ENT), and Prof Leake (UCSF) on the controlled regeneration of Spiral ganglia nerves with an aim to improve the effectiveness of Cochlear implants. Dr Pearson and Prof Shakesheff are co-inventors on an internationally filed patent for peripheral nerve regeneration.
Past Research
Peripheral nerve repair. Tissue engineered devices designed to promote peripheral nerve regeneration. Biomaterials and nerve conduits.
CNS regeneration using olfactory ensheathing cells.
Biomaterials and ligament or tendon reconstruction.