Anastasios Chanalaris

Biography

I received my degree in Biological Sciences at the School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, before carrying out an MSc in molecular biology and pathology of viruses at the Imperial College London. I completed my PhD at the Institute of Child Health, UCL on the antiapoptotic and hypertrophic effects of the urocortin family on rat neonatal cardiomyocytes.  After a postdoc at the Department of Haematology, Royal Free Hospital, UCL in leukaemia genomics, I joined the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in 2010 as a research associate. I am investigating the molecular changes that lead to osteoarthritis, as part of the Vincent group in the Arthritis Research UK Centre for Osteoarthritis Pathogenesis. I am also responsible for the real time PCR facility of the Kennedy Institute, comprising of two ABI ViiA7^TM PCR systems with TLDA capabilities.

Research Summary

There is a strong link between joint injury and development of osteoarthritis. I am interested in understanding those changes. I am employing transcriptomic, proteomic, bioinformatic and molecular biology methods to models of post-traumatic OA. I have developed in collaboration with Dr M. D. Gardiner a method to dissociate the component tissues of the mouse joint and examine the changes that occur into each compartment. My goal is to try and understand how each tissue contributes to the disease initiation. The uncovering of the ways that destabilising joint injuries can lead to joint malfunction will aid us in monitoring the progression of patients with a severe joint trauma and could also provide us with targets that can lead to osteoarthritis management, prevention or reversal.