April 2023: Dr. Kelsey Collins, PhD, joins the faculty of the UCSF Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and UCSF Musculoskeletal Center. This marks the launch of the Laboratory for Musculoskeletal Crosstalk as well as the beginning of Dr. Collins' journey as a Principal Investigator, where she aims to investigate the molecular mechanisms of tissue crosstalk in osteoarthritis.
Collins Lab, n=1.
June 29th, 2023: Kicking off the launch of the Collins Lab with our very first lab lunch at the UCSF Parnassus Heights campus! Following a tour of PH, we concluded our tour with a commemorative shot from the roof of the Regeneration Medicine Building (RMB). Image courtesy of Cristal Yee from the Alliston Lab.
Collins Lab, n=5.
Pictured (L to R): Evan Sun, Silvia Soule, Dr. Kelsey Collins, Tiffany Pham, Bethany Andoko
July 3rd, 2023: First day of work in the lab! We took the UCSF shuttle to the Mission Bay campus to obtain our ID badges.
Pictured (back row, L to R): Tiffany Pham and Bethany Andoko; (front row, L to R): Silvia Soule and Evan Sun
July 7th, 2023: Last day of our first week. We love reading papers while enjoying the spectacular views from the Regeneration Medicine Building!
Pictured (L to R): Silvia Soule, Tiffany Pham, Bethany Andoko, Evan Sun
July 17th, 2023: First (mini) group outing! Behind the scenes of the Collins Lab website photoshoot at Crissy Field. San Francisco winds: 0, Collins Lab: 1.
Pictured (back row, L to R): Emma Nedley, Evan Sun, Reyna Villa, Priscilla Tjandra; (middle row, L to R): Tiffany Pham, Silvia Soule, Bethany Andoko; (front): Dr. Collins
July 17th, 2023: More Collins Lab ussies! Image courtesy of Emma, lighting extraordinaire and BeReal wiz.
Collins Lab, n=8. (Finally!)
Pictured (back row, L to R): Evan Sun, Priscilla Tjandra, Dr. Collins, Reyna Villa; (middle row, L to R): Tiffany Pham, Bethany Andoko, Silvia Soule; (front): Emma Nedley
July 24th, 2023: Group dinner at New Belgium following the UCSF NORC Mini-Retreat, "The intersection of body composition musculoskeletal health."
Pictured (L to R): Evan Sun, Tiffany Pham, Dr. Kelsey Collins, Bethany Andoko, Priscilla Tjandra
July 24th, 2023: Gorgeous evening shot from the bridge adjacent to China Basin, with Oracle Park peeping from behind. Image courtesy of Evan, our ever-trustworthy navigation master and parking spot locator.
July 27th, 2023: Our very first lab retreat at Golden Gate Park, enjoying light refreshments and pizza from Arizmendi Bakery. Image courtesy of Reyna Villa, Junior Specialist and the newest addition to the Collins Lab!
Pictured (L to R): Bethany Andoko, Tiffany Pham, Dr. Kelsey Collins, Priscilla Tjandra, Evan Sun, Silvia Soule
July 27th, 2023: The Collins lab group is filled with wildly imaginative and creative artistic flames (ask us about our custom mugs)! We concluded our first lab retreat with pottery painting at Earthfire Arts Studio in the Inner Sunset.
Pictured (back row, L to R): Evan Sun, Bethany Andoko, Priscilla Tjandra, Dr. Kelsey Collins; (front row, L to R): Tiffany Pham, Silvia Soule, Reyna Villa
August 1st, 2023: Happy first day in lab, Priscilla! As our first postdoc, Dr. Tjandra will help us define tissue specific responses to leptin signaling in models of OA. We are thrilled to learn from her PhD experience in systemic crosstalk and complement signaling.
August 7th, 2023: Dr. Collins and Bethany at the 3rd Annual PROPEL Research Symposium, held at the UCSF Mission Bay Campus. We are proud to be part of the PROPEL Post-baccalaureate Program and wholeheartedly echo their mission to promote diversity in science by providing research experiences to those historically underrepresented and excluded.
August 30th, 2023: Bonding over baseball & bone biology, and rooting for the SF giants for the 2023 UCSF Orthopaedic Surgery Research Retreat! The Collins Lab and others enjoyed a sun-tastic summer outing after a skeletal proteomics workshop, with friends from the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and the Medical University of Southern California.
October 5th, 2023: We celebrated the installation of our surgical microscope from Leica Biosystems! Once the TV monitor is wall-mounted and the binoculars are installed, we will be ready to start our work on preclinical models of osteoarthritis in a way that is visually accessible way and teaching friendly.
November 9th, 2023: Congratulations to Tiffany and Reyna for their acceptances into the UCSF PROPEL program!
November 13th, 2023: Tiffany, Beth, and Priscilla attended the Inaugural Bakar Aging Research Institute (BARI) Symposium to support the work of aging researchers at UCSF and beyond. This event was held at the glamorous de Young Museum in San Francisco.
November 17th, 2023: Watch party to support and learn from Eva Gonzales, PhD (UCSF Hernandez Lab), while she discussed her crosstalk plans for her future faculty position. We enjoyed many inspiring talks at the Next Generation Faculty Symposium, sponsored by Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UCSF.
December 1st, 2023: Priscilla presented her dissertation research, titled “Systemic Bone Loss Following Myocardial Infarction and the Role of the SNS and Complement System” at the Orthopaedic Surgery Research-In-Progress (RIPS) series.
December 4th, 2023: Dr. Collins and Beth presented at the Inaugural Chicago Center on Musculoskeletal Pain (C-COMP) Symposium at Rush University in Chicago, IL. Dr. Collins’ talk and Beth’s poster highlighted the lab’s goals of disentangling the role of adipose and neuroimmune crosstalk in OA pain. Beth also participated in pain testing training with the Malfait-Miller Lab at Rush.
December 12th, 2023: Congratulations to Reyna for winning the People’s Choice Award in the UCSF Stem Cell image competition at the IRM Holiday Party. This Safranin O/Fast Green-stained mouse knee joint is the first histology image generated in our group!
January 2nd, 2024: Dr. Collins’ first senior author paper, titled "Designer Fat Cells: Adipogenic Differentiation of CRISPR-Cas9 Genome-Engineered Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells", was published in European Cells & Materials.
January 8th, 2024: Kristen Chan joined the lab as a CIRM Master’s Student! We are excited to learn from her as she brings her experience from working in the pharmaceutical industry to our designer adipose anti-cytokine stem cell therapy projects.
January 9th, 2024: All smiles and laughter at the Holiday Party, jointly hosted by the Departments of Anatomy and Microbiology.
January 2024: Congratulations to Emma for being selected to join the Dental Student Research Program! We are thrilled to support her presentation on the role of the infrapatellar fat pad in osteoarthritis at UCSF's Clinical Research and Excellence Day. Emma works with Dr. Collins and Dr. Souza, and is under the leadership of Dr. Lisa Berens and Roger Mraz in the School of Dentistry.
February 26th, 2024: Reyna Villa shined during her TED-style talk at the 2024 IRM Stem Cell Retreat! Her talk on osteoarthritis follows her People’s Choice win at the IRM Holiday Party Science Art Contest. We were in awe of the devotion to cutting-edge research within the UCSF Stem Cell community and the work presented at the retreat.
February 26th, 2024: On top of Reyna’s winning histology image being the first image ever generated in our group, this was also our lab’s first time attending the annual IRM Stem Cell Retreat. Peek our first group ussie of 2024!
March 7th, 2024: The Collins Lab's newest group photo and our first of 2024.
Pictured (back row, L to R): Reyna Villa, Bethany Andoko, Dr. Kelsey Collins, Priscilla Tjandra; (front row, L to R): Tiffany Pham, Kristen Chan, Emma Nedley.
March 7th, 2024: Reyna, Priscilla, Emma, and Dr. Collins performing a Saf O/Fast Green staining procedure at our histological staining bench.
March 7th, 2024: Tiffany and Reyna sectioning paraffin-embedded murine knee joints molds and collecting slides at the microtome station.
March 7th, 2024: What's a Collins Lab photoshoot without exclusive behind-the-scenes shots? Here we have our inseparable cell-based therapy duo Tiffany and Kristen, along with our precious (and shy) knee joint plushy!
March 7th, 2024: Behind-the-scenes once again! Here we have Tiffany and Reyna at the histological sectioning workstation, located within the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery research labs at Parnassus.
March 12th, 2024: Emma presented a fabulous slam talk at the 10th Annual UCSF Core Center for Musculoskeletal Biology and Medicine (CCMMB) Retreat's Slam Talk Competition! This event was hosted in Genentech Hall at the Mission Bay campus.
March 13th, 2024: Reyna was selected to present her TED-style talk, titled "Unmasking Osteoarthritis", based on her Saf O/Fast Green-stained histological knee joint image, at the 10th Annual CCMBM Retreat in Mission Bay!
March 18th, 2024: Priscilla gave a stellar talk at the 2024 Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC) Scientific Retreat in Chaminade Resort & Spa in Santa Cruz! Her talk provided insights on the work our lab is currently doing to investigate the role of metabolic factors on OA disease progression and pain.
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