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Yoshi Itoh, Associate Professor and Principal Investigator Cell Migration Group at the Kennedy Institute has been awarded the International Dupuytren Award 2022.

Yoshi Itoh Dupuytren's award
Yoshi Itoh (r) receives the International Dupuytren award 2022 from Dominic Furniss (l)

Yoshi's paper: “A common SNP risk variant MT1-MMP causative for Dupuytren’s disease has a specific defect in collagenolytic activity”, published in Matrix Biology was recognised as the best paper published on the subject of Dupuytren's Disease in the previous year.

On receiving the award Yoshi said: “It is wonderful that our discovery was recognised by the International Dupuytren Society. I feel very honoured to receive the International Dupuytren's Award 2022. Our study demonstrated that one of the causes of Dupuytren disease is the impaired collagen catabolism caused by the single nucleotide polymorphism at the gene of the crucial cell surface collagenolytic enzyme, MT1-MMP/MMP-14. We hope that our discovery will lead to the development of novel therapeutics for Dupuytren disease in the future.

"Around 30% of the worldwide population or 35% of the European population have the low collagenolytic SNP allele. Therefore, further investigation on the impact of the SNP in different pathophysiological conditions is very important. Finally, I wish to express my appreciation to all the authors of the paper. Without everyones’ contributions, it would have been impossible to complete the paper.”

Professor Dominic Furniss, who presented Yoshi with the award said: “My congratulations go to Yoshi for this recognition of his research by the International Dupuytren Society. This is the sixth year running that a team from NDORMS has won the award, which demonstrates our world leading research in this area.”

The International Dupuytren Award recognises exceptional scientific publications on research or clinical treatment of Dupuytren and/or Ledderhose disease.