Amelie Waring Fellowship
A research fellowship is supported by the Society.
Amelie Waring unfortunately succumbed to an attack of trauma associated acute pancreatitis. Her husband, Mr. Herbert Waring, was determined to improve the understanding and management of the disease, and made a bequest in her name to the Pancreatic Society more than 20 years ago. This Society has utilised the investment expertise of the Digestive Disorders Foundation to ensure that the fund has grown over the years and can now support regular research salaries and laboratory costs. This is a substantial award, specifically for pancreatic research, administered through CORE (formerly the Digestive Diseases Foundation).
It is anticipated that a second fellowship will be awarded in 2007
Current Amelie Waring Fellowships
Amelie Waring 2 year Fellowship awarded to:
Mr John Murphy, Royal Liverpool Hospital, November 2004
Project entitled:
"The role of intracellular second messengers and premature intracellular enzyme activation in the pathogenesis of acute pancreatitis"
Commenced:December 2004
Lay summary:
Acute Pancreatitis is a common and life-threatening disease of the pancreas, a gland at the back of the abdomen that releases enzymes into the intestine to digest food. Normally the enzymes do not become active until they enter the intestine, and are harmless. In pancreatitis the enzymes are activated prematurely, and digest the pancreas. In some patients the pancreas is so badly damaged that part or all of it dies, leading to failure of other parts of the body, with patients dying or spending many months in hospital. This disease is therefore a great burden to patients, and very costly to the National Health Service.
The two major causes are gallstones and alcohol, but how these cause acute pancreatitis is not well understood. Normal enzyme release is switched on by calcium signals inside the cells, but in acute pancreatitis, these calcium signals are faulty, with large rises in calcium levels inside the cells, leading to premature activation of the enzymes within the cells. We will study how toxic rises in calcium are produced, and how the toxic rises make enzymes active inside cells and cause cellular destruction and death. We hope that the results from this work will help to provide new targets for drugs to prevent and cure the disease, and lessen the burden of suffering that it causes.
Amelie Waring Award 2007
Mr Rajarshi Mukherjee, University of Liverpool
Mitochondrial injury in the pathogenesis of necrotizing pancreatitis
Commenced: August 2007
Lay Summary:
Pancreatitis is a very common and serious illness that can have devastating consequences. The pancreas makes digestive juice containing enzymes, which break down food to be absorbed, but in pancreatitis the enzymes attack the pancreas itself. Pancreatitis is usually caused by gallstones, which can make bile go into the pancreas, or by drinking excess alcohol, which is turned into dangerous chemicals in the pancreas. One in five people with pancreatitis have severe disease that may need intensive care and treatment in hospital for many months that can lead to chronic illness or death. Unfortunately even after years of research there are few treatments for pancreatitis, and still no useful drugs, so this disease must be understood better to improve the management of it.
My research will be conducted with a leading team of scientists and hospital doctors who have discovered that calcium is the most important signal in the release of enzymes from the cells of the pancreas, and that when the calcium signals go wrong, the cells are damaged and pancreatitis develops. Building on this work, the aim of this project is to find out how alcohol and bile damage the cells of the pancreas and how such damage and its devastating effects can be prevented or limited. The project will study what goes wrong with the mitochondria, part of cells in the pancreas that make energy needed by cells to live and work normally. Experiments will be conducted using high-powered microscopes that show changes in living cells, including human cells given freely and willingly by pancreas patients. The research will test drugs that could be used to prevent or treat pancreatitis, and so could improve the outcome of the many patients who suffer from this disease.