Most people can’t say they’re giving hope to 50 million people…but Christopher Evans, Ph.D., can. Dr. Evans, Director of the Center for Advanced Orthopaedic Studies at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Maurice Edmond Mueller Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Harvard Medical School, was presented with the 2010 Arthur Steindler Award. This honor was bestowed upon him for his work on the world’s first clinical trial of gene therapy for arthritis.
The Arthur Steindler Award is made biannually to recognize senior scientists, clinicians and educators who have made significant contributions to the understanding of the musculoskeletal system and musculoskeletal diseases and injuries.
“Arthritis is our nation’s most common cause of disability, ” noted Mark Gebhardt, M.D., Chief of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at BIDMC, in the news release. “Nearly 50 million Americans are dealing with some form of this extremely painful condition, and that number will only grow larger as our population ages. The innovative research being conducted by Chris Evans holds great promise as a new treatment option for managing this widespread disease.”
In 2009 Dr. Evans published the first clinical evidence demonstrating a clinical response to gene therapy in rheumatoid arthritis. He is in the process of developing a further clinical study in the gene therapy of osteoarthritis and has advanced pre-clinical research programs in bone healing and the repair of damage to cartilage.
Commenting on the new gene therapy study, Dr. Evans told OTW, “We are in the process of trying to initiate a new gene therapy clinical trial in osteoarthritis. We have been awarded an NIH grant with which to do this, but we have run into major issues with the FDA. I suspect this reflects the 2007 death of a subject in a different arthritis gene therapy trial.”
The author of more than 300 papers, Dr. Evans received his doctorate from Swansea University, Wales, UK, which recently bestowed him with an honorary fellowship. He is also the recipient of the Marshall R. Urist Award (for excellence in tissue regeneration) from the Orthopaedic Research Society and is an elected fellow of the Hastings Center, a leading bioethics research institute. Last year, Dr. Evans’ laboratory received a National Institutes of Health Challenge Grant of more than $980, 000 to develop innovative ways to heal broken bones.
As for what the award means to him, Dr. Evans told OTW, “This means a great deal, largely because it is not one of those major awards, such as the Kappa Delta Award, that you apply for. So it means that your research is appreciated without your drawing attention to it! Moreover, the Arthur Steindler Award is given for a sustained body of work generated over a long period, which is nice.”
