Isabella Collins

DPhil Student

I am a third year PhD student funded by Versus Arthritis. I became interested in the pathogenesis of osteoarthritis during an undergraduate research project at the University of Oxford, where I studied pre-clinical medicine. I am now investigating the regulation cartilage matrix-degrading proteases by an organelle called the primary cilium, which is most famously involved in cellular signalling. Specifically, my project is focused on determining how primary cilia-localised proteins regulate protease activity, and whether the expression of genes encoding these proteins is altered in osteoarthritis.