Endocrine Abstracts

Volume 11

British Thyroid Association Pitt Rivers Lecture

B Vennström, CMB, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. Abstract

Björn Vennström studied the retroviral oncogenes v-erbA and v-erbB and their cellular protooncogenes during his post-doctoral training at UCSF. With Dr Vennström’s own research group, first in Uppsala but later at EMBL in Heidelberg, and in collaboration with others, defined the functions of the two oncogenes in tumorigenesis. While elucidating the mechanism of v-erbA action, he showed that c-erbA encodes a thyroid hormone receptor. Along with several other investigators he subsequently identified the roles of the thyroid hormone receptors alpha and beta in mediating the diverse functions of thyroid hormone. The use of mice deficient for TR genes allowed the identification of major roles of TR alpha in heart, bone and neuronal tissues, and found that TR beta is dominant for regulating the HPT axis, development of sensory organs and homeostasis of cholesterol metabolism. This aids the understanding of thyroid hormone action and augments the development of compounds that selectively target specific tissues. This research has also highlighted the role of unliganded TRs: the aporeceptors exert profoundly deleterious effects both during development and in the adult, thus providing an understanding for how lack of hormone causes hypothyroidism. Lately, his research aims at elucidating the role of TRs in development and adult function of the nervous system.