David Young
david.young@ncl.ac.uk
Although I don’t do much lab work, when I do I try to develop new techniques within the group, such as CRISPR/Cas9.
ORCID ID: 
orcid.org/0000-0002-7078-6745Matt Barter
matthew.barter@ncl.ac.uk
Matt works on how RNAs, small (micro) and long, control the phenotype of chondrocytes, the cells of cartilage. Much of his work is about how stem cells differentiate into chondrocytes. Matt is funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust.
Adam Farrier
a.j.farrier2@newcastle.ac.uk
Adam is a clinical fellow examining how to return gene expression in osteoarthritis back to normal. Adam is funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust.
Hua Lin
Hua.Lin@newcastle.ac.uk
Hua is a research associate in the group who is responsible for histology amongst manner more things. Hua keeps many projects up and running!
Francesca Manuela de Sousa Brito, Rachel Pearson, Krutik Patel, Raul-Cristian Fulea, Thais De Las Heras Ruiz, Helen Dietmar, Marjolein Burgers and Tania Jones
Are post-docs and students associated with the group working on various aspects of cartilage biology or non-coding RNA function.
Recent ex-members
Dan Hayman
Dan was a CIMA funded MRes/PhD student in the group, co-supervised with collaborators at the University of Liverpool ( Rob Van ‘T Hof). His project related to microRNAs in ageing and osteoarthritis. He’s now working at the University of Sheffield.
Jamie Soul
Jamie has joined the group as a Versus Arthritis Foundation Fellow. He’s a bioinformatic specialist examining gene regulation in osteoarthritis and other MSK conditions and now hold a permanent position in Liverpool
Yao Hao
Yao was a PhD student working on the regulation of microRNAs in cartilage. He was specifically looking at how miR-140 and miR-455 function in vivo. Yao has returned to China to continue his orthopaedic training.
Silvia Lecci
S.lecci2@ncl.ac.uk
Silvia’s was a PhD student. She was studying the molecular pathways by which several rare disease-causing mutations perturb chondrocyte formation. Her project was examining Col9A3 and the consequences of deleting exon 3. Her studentship was funded by the EU, FP7 project Sybil. She recently led Covid-19 screening team at a Lighthouse lab.
Julia Falk
Julia was a research technician working also with John Loughlin. She worked on a number of projects facilitating the research of clinical trainees. She’s now undertaking a PhD in Edinburgh.
Andreas Panagiotopoulos
Andreas is a clinical trainee and worked with us for two short periods, using ATAC-seq to map enhancers in chondrocytes. He’s now taking a PhD in osteosarcoma research.
Marta Radwan
Marta was a MSCA fellow and continued her fellowship work to to understand what the different isoforms of a cartilage selective E3 ligase, WWP2, actually do. As part of her MSCA fellowship she spent a a year in the US working at the National Cancer Institute, Maryland USA with Allan Weissman. She’s now working as a scientific writer.
Sarah Charlton
Sarah was an RA in the group developing the use of the Cas9/CRISPR system. She has now taken up a position in the NHS.
Dimitra Tsompani
Dimitra finished her Arthritis Research UK funded PhD examining how histone deacetylase 3 (HDAC3) regulates chondrocyte function in 2017. The work came from a couple of studies where we found HDAC inhibition could prevent cartilage destruction in vitro and in vivo. She then worked on a JGWP Foundation grant looking at microRNA delivery. She now has a permanent position with GSK – well done.
Kat Cheung
Kat had left the group to work with Dan Rico, returned to head up our SRG bioinformatics. However she’s now working for a bioinformatic company in Edinburgh!
Kat’s PhD aimed to understand the process of chondrogenesis at the epigenetic level. Kat undertook a series of ChIP-seq experiments aimed at mapping chromatin state changes during stem cell differentiation to chondrocytes and correlating this with gene expression changes (RNA-seq). Eventually we hope to determine if some of these same dynamic chromatin regions also change in OA. Kat was funded by CIMA, a joint grant held between Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle.
Bola Ajekigbe
Bola is a clinical trainee. He completed two 4 month AFP rotations in the group before returning to the clinic. He was examining the role of specific long non-coding RNAs in chondrocytes.