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Roger Corder studied pharmacy at the University of Portsmouth before taking a pre-registration position in North East Thames Regional Heath Authority, which included training in clinical pharmacy under the tutelage of Paul Turner at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. After qualifying as a pharmacist in 1978 he embarked on a career in research through positions in Endocrinology and Chemical Pathology at the Medical College of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He obtained an MSc in Pharmacology from the University of East London in 1981, and was awarded a PhD in 1986 from the University of London for his studies of neuropeptide Y. He undertook research for five years in the Department of Medicine in Geneva, Switzerland before returning to London in 1991 to take up a position of senior scientist leading endothelin research at the William Harvey Research Institute. He became Professor of Experimental Therapeutics in 2000. Since 2000 he has also been chairman of the management committee of the William Harvey Research Foundation (http://www.whrf.org.uk).
Current research interests
The main focus of his research is diabetes and atherosclerosis. These two health problems are closely linked with many diabetics dying prematurely from heart disease. This research has two main goals: discovery of new therapeutic strategies for this ever-increasing health problem, and identification of biomarkers of disease that can be used in the early diagnosis of patients before clinically important symptoms develop. These interests led him to investigate the importance of improving health and cardiovascular wellbeing through diet. During the past five years he has studied the mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of regular red wine consumption. He is currently pursuing translational research on alternatives to red wine, such as grape seed extract, as these are more amenable to conducting clinical trials. This research is providing a wealth of new insights into how polyphenol-rich diets can modify vascular function. It has led to the concept that procyanidins (a particularly abundant type of polyphenol) trigger a response in the vascular endothelium that he has called the pseudo laminar shear stress response. This concept is based on evidence that procyanidins mimic the protective changes in the endothelium induced by the physical shear forces of blood flowing through blood vessels. Further research on this area is likely to lead to new functional foods and new medicines to treat endothelial dysfunction and combat vascular disease.
Key publications
- Corder R, Mullen W, Khan NQ, Marks SC, Wood EG, Carrier MJ, Crozier A. Oenology: red wine procyanidins and vascular health. Nature. (2006) Nov 30;444(7119):566.
- Anand DV, Lahiri A, Lim E, Hopkins D, Corder R. The relationship between plasma osteoprotegerin levels and coronary artery calcification in uncomplicated type 2 diabetic subjects. J Am Coll Cardiol. (2006) May 2;47(9):1850-7.
- Sethi AS, Lees DM, Douthwaite JA, Corder R.
Factor VIIa stimulates endothelin-1 synthesis in TNF-primed endothelial cells by activation of protease-activated receptor 2. Clin Sci (Lond) (2005), 108: 255-63.
- Corder R, Warburton RC, Khan NQ, Brown RE, Wood EG, Lees DM. The procyanidin-induced pseudo laminar shear stress response: a new concept for the reversal of endothelial dysfunction. Clin Sci (Lond). (2004), 107: 513-7.
- Douthwaite JA, Lees DM, Corder R. A role for increased mRNA stability in the induction of endothelin-1 synthesis by lipopolysaccharide. Biochem Pharmacol. (2003), 66: 589-94.
- Corder R. Evaluation of endothelin-converting enzyme inhibitors using cultured cells. Methods Mol Biol. (2002), 206: 147-64.
- Corder R, Douthwaite JA, Lees DM, Khan NQ, Viseu Dos Santos AC, Wood EG, Carrier MJ. Endothelin-1 synthesis reduced by red wine. Nature (2001), 414: 863-4.
- Barker S, Khan NQ, Wood EG, Corder R.
Effect of an antisense oligodeoxynucleotide to endothelin-converting enzyme-1c (ECE-1c) on ECE-1c mRNA, ECE-1 protein and endothelin-1 synthesis in bovine pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells. Mol Pharmacol. (2001), 59: 163-9.
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