Simon Jones

University of Birmingham

Simon Jones is a Professor in Musculoskeletal Ageing within the Department of Inflammation and Ageing, University of Birmingham. His research is focused on understanding the inflammatory and metabolic mechanisms that mediate musculoskeletal pathological disorders including Osteoarthritis. He was the first to report on the role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in the inflammatory response of human OA chondrocytes (Arthritis Rheumatology. 68(4):845-56, 2016), and more recently on the functional role of the lncRNA MALAT1 in mediating the inflammatory OA synovial fibroblast phenotype (Arthritis Rheumatology, 2020). In 2021, he reported for the first time that synovial tissue at the site of OA patient-reported joint exhibits distinct fibroblast subsets that promote inflammation and neuronal growth (EBioMedicine, 2021), providing the therapeutic rationale for targeting specific fibroblast subsets to alleviate joint pain.