Rate My Professor Rebecca Mason

Professor Rebecca Mason, MBBS (Hons), PhD, is Professor of Endocrine Physiology in the School of Medical Sciences within Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney. She earned her Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery with Honours in 1975 and her PhD in Medicine in 1981 from the University of Sydney, complemented by clinical experience in endocrinology. Leading the Vitamin D, Bone and Skin Laboratory in the Anderson Stuart Building, her research centers on vitamin D and calcium physiology, including metabolism, specific uptake and retention mechanisms for 25-hydroxyvitamin D in skeletal muscle cells, actions in bone and skin cells, and the protective effects of vitamin D compounds against ultraviolet radiation-induced DNA damage and photocarcinogenesis. Her group investigates the role of skeletal muscle in maintaining vitamin D status during periods of low UVB exposure, such as winter. Professor Mason formerly served as Head of the Discipline of Physiology and Deputy Director of the Bosch Institute. She pioneered one of the first assays in Australia for measuring vitamin D compounds in blood, demonstrated extra-renal production of the active vitamin D hormone 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, and established the roles of vitamin D in skin biology, including reduction of UV-induced DNA damage.