Cardiff University Professor given lifetime achievement award

A Cardiff University Professor has been rewarded for his ground-breaking research, which has contributed significantly to the field of physiology and pathophysiology.

Professor Ole Petersen CBE FRS, School of Biosciences, has been awarded the most prestigious award that the American Physiological Society bestows, recognising him for his lifetime achievement as an outstanding physiological scientist.

In 1984 Professor Ole Petersen recorded the first single-channel currents from epithelial cells and later discovered intracellular local calcium signals, release of calcium from the nuclear envelope as well as intracellular calcium tunnels.

The Cardiff Professor’s research has clarified the role of the signalling molecule, inositol trisphosphate, in acute pancreatitis and demonstrated the potential use of pharmaceutical inhibitors of calcium channels for the prevention and treatment of the disease.

Clinical trials based on his discoveries will be initiated later this year.

In recognition of this vital work, the American Physiological Society presented Ole with the Walter B Cannon Award and he delivered the Plenary Cannon Award Lecture ‘The roles of Ca2+ and ATP in pancreatic physiology and pathophysiology’ at Experimental Biology 2018 on April 22 in San Diego, California.

Professor Ole Petersen said: “It is a great honour to have been selected to receive the American Physiological Society’s Cannon Memorial Award and to have had the opportunity to present the Cannon Plenary Award Lecture at EB2018, the largest general biology meeting in the world.

“This life time award represents an important recognition of the work carried out in my laboratory over many years with many outstanding co-workers, not least together with Drs Oleg and Julia Gerasimenko in Cardiff School of Biosciences.”