Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to individuals from the following organisations for playing important parts in my career and making use of my antibodies and assays.
SEROTEC
Ed Bernard, James Bernard , Tim Bernard and Adam Bernard.
For initiating the sale of Brookes antibodies and assays and enthusiastically promoting their use. Also to Ed and James for involvement with Oxford Bio-Innovation. Lisa Mynheer and Tony Ertl are thanked for their key roles in bringing inhibin kits to the market and in planning the establishment of Oxford Bio-Innovation and her key role in the decade of its existence. I am also grateful to Lisa and Barry Wheatley who between them planned and applied for a successful European grant with multinational partners to define the roles of inhibin.
OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY
Barry Wheatley and past and present staff of the Research and Business development office (RBDO). Particularly to Barry for agreements with Biotech Australia related to the inhibin products and the successful establishment of Oxford Bio-Innovation (OBI) and his time in charge of OBI. Natasha Williams from Brookes legal service. Anne Kearns from the School of Health Care and Life Sciences and Nick Davis from RBDO all of whom were and are still involved with the antibody portfolio. Cynthia Green, David Woodward, John Francis and the current head of RBDO David Hartley and also external consultant Linsey Creswell of LLC associates.
Professor Graham Upton, formerly Vice Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, for successful negotiations leading up to the sale of Oxford Bio-innovation to Diagnostic System Laboratories (DSL).
Professor David Beadle, former head of department at Oxford Brookes and his successor Professor Linda King for support of my research related activities both before and since retirement.
All my masters and doctoral students and technical staff at Brookes University over many years. Including:
Alex Paton as coauthor on 4 papers on protein kinase C.
Mark Lawrence as coauthor on 4 papers on inhibin or myelin basic protein.
Martin O’Brien as coauthor of 7 papers on inhibin.
Dr Richard Barry as coauthor on 4 papers on myelin basic protein.
Dr Mohammed Meerasahib as coauthor on 5 papers on myostatin, AMH or BMP-15.
Dr Janice Harland as coauthor on 2 papers on myelin basic protein.
Dr Adrian Dawkes as coauthor of 4 papers on myelin basic protein.
Dr Lee Evans as coauthor on 29 papers on activins and follistatin.
Dr Helen Ludlow as coauthor on 4 papers related to activin B and inhibin B.
Dr Mark Cranfield as coauthor of 14 papers on a variety of topics and for managing my laboratory over many years.
Dr Ahmed Al-Qahtani as coauthor of 6 papers on GDF9, BMP-15 or AMH.
Dr Michelle Yon as coauthor of 3 papers on myelin basic protein phosphorylation.
Dr Jean Walters as coauthor of 3 papers on acidic fibroblast growth factor.
Dr Matthew Hazell as coauthor of a paper on adiponectin.
Dr John Priddle as coauthor of a paper on inhibin.
Dr Anastasia Tsigos as coauthor of 3 papers on inhibin.
Dr Terry Woolley.
Jim Smith (formerly Chief Technician), Michelle Rawlings, Lin Bateson, Graciela de Nunez Sanchez, Simon Ward, Stuart Pendlebury, and Len Bagnall, and for photography, Derek Whiteley (the late), Shona Bellis and Bob Pomfret.
INSTITUTE OF NEUROLOGY LONDON
Professor Louise Cuzner and Dr Paul Glynn as coauthors of 3 papers on myelin.
BECKMAN COULTER
Susan Retka and the immunoassay team including Eric Rouvier and Marian Navratil for automating the AMH assay on the Access platform.
Dr Sherry Faye is thanked for her promotion of AMH assays with such enthusiasm.
ROCHE DIAGNOSTICS
Dr Dieter Gassner and colleagues for producing the Elecsys automated AMH assay.
OXFORD BIO-INNOVATION
William Finch for running Oxford Bio-Innovation for many years.
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY or MRC REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY UNIT
Dr Euan Wallace (Now Professor) as a key collaborator and coauthor on 24 papers in relation to Down’s screening and other applications of inhibin.
Professor Alan McNeilly as coauthor of 17 papers including the highly cited papers describing the first inhibin A and B assays.
Professor David Baird as coauthor of 5 papers on inhibin.
Dr Peter Illingworth (now Professor) as coauthor of 9 papers including the highly cited papers showing for the first time the pattern of inhibin B secretion in the menstrual cycle and establishing inhibin B as the functional inhibin in men.
DrPhillipa Saunders (now Professor) as coauthor on 12 papers relating to estrogen receptors, aromatase and dazl.
Professor Richard Anderson as coauthor of 9 papers on inhibins, AMH and other topics.
Dr Pat Crofton as coauthor of 6 papers on paediatric inhibin levels.
Dr Simon Riley as coauthor of 14 papers on inhibins.
UNIVERSITY OF READING
Professor Phil Knight as coauthor on 31 papers on inhibins and activins and for an important involvement in optimizing the first dimeric inhibin assays.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK
Dr Shanthi Muttukrishna (the late).
(Formerly University College London, John Radcliffe hospital Oxford and the University of Reading as coauthor on 41 papers on inhibins, activins , follistatin and AMH.
ERASMUS UNIVERSITY ROTTERDAM
Professor Axel Themmen. For inviting me to participate as a partner in a European grant on ovarian ageing (Ovage) and for key involvement in making antibodies to anti-mullerian hormone, and as coauthor on 6 papers on AMH.
UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI
Professor Ollie Ritvos and Dr David Motterhead as coauthor of 13 papers on GDF9 and GDF9B (BMP15).
PRINCE HENRY’S INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH MELBOURNE
Professor David Robertson as coauthor of 19 papers related to inhibins and activins.
Professor Henry Burger as coauthor of 14 papers related to inhibins.
MONASH UNIVERSITY
Professor David De Kretser as cooauthor of 9 papers on activins.
Professor Gail Risbridger as coauthor of 8 papers on inhibins and activins.
UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO
Professor K.Taya as coauthor of 19 papers on inhibin in animals.
AGRESEARCH (now University of Victoria) NEW ZEALAND
Professor Ken McNatty as coauthor of 9 papers on GDF9 and BMP-15.
RIGHOSPITALET DENMARK
Professor Neils Skakkebaek as coauthor of 3 papers on inhibin B in males.
BUENOS ARIES
Dr Stella Campo as coauthor of 6 papers on inhibins.
JOHN RADCLIFFE HOSPITAL OXFORD
Professor William Ledger (when at the John Radcliffe Hospital and the University of Sheffield as coauthor of 15 papers on activins and inhibins.
Dr Gill Lockwood as coauthor of 5 papers on inhibin and activins.
ANSH LABS HOUSTON
Gopal Savjani for his role in Diagnostic Systems Laboratories in making a commercial success of some of my Brookes products, and for the opportunity to spend time in Texas training his staff in Ansh labs.
Shivani Shah (now Shivani Mistry) for being a delightful enthusiastic and bright student to train in monoclonal antibody work and for all her efforts then and now to keep up the highest standards.
Dr AJ Kumar and Dr B Kalra for their support during my time in Texas and for making good use of the antibody-generation skills I imparted to Ansh labs to provide new research and clinical tools.
Thanks for research funding are due to the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research Campaign, Royal Society, Multiple Sclerosis Society, European Commission, Ovita, Diagnostic System Laboratories.
On a personal level, sincere thanks are due to my first wife Lynda Groome-Briggs and my current wife Farima GroomeFarrokh for support and understanding during the many times when I was preoccupied with research.