Dr Simon W Jones PhD, BSc

Simon Jones

Institute of Inflammation and Ageing
Deputy Institute Director - Teaching
Reader in Musculoskeletal Ageing

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 371 3224
Email
s.w.jones@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
Institute of Inflammation and Ageing
MRC-Versus Arthritis Centre
Queen Elizabeth Hospital
The University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham B15 2WB

Dr Jones is a Reader in Musculoskeletal Ageing within the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing. His research is focused on understanding the inflammatory and metabolic mechanisms that mediate joint and musculoskeletal pathological disorders including Osteoarthritis, Sarcopenia, Type II Diabetes and Scoliosis. He has a particular research focus on the role of non-coding RNAs (including miRNAs and long non coding RNAs) in mediating inflammatory responses and in understanding how obesity affects the pathology of diseased joint and musculoskeletal tissues.

Teaching

Dr Jones is Head of Education for the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing. He is the Director of the new MSc in Drug Discovery and Development, and also teaches on the following modules and programmes.

Module Leader

  • MPharm, Health, Disease and Therapeutics 3.1

Lecturer

  • BMedSci, Biology of Ageing
  • BMedSci, Immunity and Inflammatory Disease
  • MBChB, Infection, Immunity and Haematology

Postgraduate supervision

Simon Jones's research interests include the inflammatory and metabolic mechanisms that drive osteoarthritis pathology, the role of skeletal muscle dysfunction and atrophy in chronic disease and understanding the functional role of non-coding RNAs in mediating inflammatory responses.

Dr Jones's current research projects include:

The functional role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in mediating joint inflammation in osteoarthritis (in collaboration with Prof Mark Lindsay, University of Bath)
Adiposity and skeletal muscle growth and differentiation: understanding sarcopenic obesity (in collaboration with Dr Kostas Tsintzas, University of Nottingham)
Development and characterisation of novel biomimetic scaffolds for cartilage and bone repair (in collaboration with Prof Liam Grover, University of Birmingham)
The role of adipose-secreted cytokines in mediating osteoarthritis joint pathology

Other activities

Dr Jones is Chief Investigator for the following NIHR portfolio-adopted clinical studies:

  • IRAS 206880 (REC 16/SS/0172): “Skeletal muscle/adipose cross-talk: novel modulators of osteoarthritis joint inflammation”
  • IRAS 228205 (REC 17/SC/0456): “Inflammation and osteoarthritis joint pain”
  • IRAS 158485 (REC 14/ES/1044): Metabolic mediators of joint inflammation in osteoarthritis”
  • IRAS 125653 (REC 13/NE/0222): Adipose-secreted cytokines and OA pathology: pilot study"
  • IRAS 256224 (REC 19/WM/0083): “Intrinsic differences at the curve apex in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis patients"

Membership of professional bodies

Dr Jones served on the Versus Arthritis Research Fellowships panel (2019-2020) and currently sits on the Versus Arthritis Senior Fellowships panel 2021.

He is PhD training lead for the MRC-Versus Arthritis Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research (CMAR) and a member of the CMAR board.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Farah, H, Wijesinghe, S, Nicholson, T, Alnajjar, FAQ, Certo, M, Alghamdi, AMA, Davis, E, Young, S, Mauro, C & Jones, S 2022, 'Differential metabotypes in synovial fibroblasts and synovial fluid in hip osteoarthritis patients support inflammatory responses', International Journal of Molecular Sciences, vol. 23, no. 6, 3266. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23063266

Wijesinghe, SN, Lindsay, MA & Jones, SW 2022, 'Long non-coding RNAs in rheumatology', Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol. 1363, pp. 35-70. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92034-0_4

Webster, J, Sagmeister, M, Fenton, C, Seabright, A, Lai, Y-C, Jones, S, Filer, A, Cooper, MS, Lavery, G, Raza, K, Langen, R & Hardy, R 2021, 'Global deletion of 11β-HSD1 prevents muscle wasting associated with glucocorticoid therapy in polyarthritis', International Journal of Molecular Sciences, vol. 22, no. 15, 7828. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22157828

Webster, JM, Sagmeister, MS, Fenton, CG, Seabright, AP, Lai, YC, Jones, SW, Filer, A, Cooper, MS, Lavery, GG, Raza, K, Langen, R & Hardy, RS 2021, 'Global deletion of 11β-HSD1 prevents muscle wasting associated with glucocorticoid therapy in polyarthritis', International Journal of Molecular Sciences, vol. 22, no. 15, 7828. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22157828

Clayton, SA, Daley, KK, Macdonald, L, Fernandez-vizarra, E, Bottegoni, G, O’Neil, JD, Major, T, Griffin, D, Zhuang, Q, Adewoye, AB, Woolcock, K, Jones, SW, Goodyear, C, Elmesmari, A, Filer, A, Tennant, DA, Alivernini, S, Buckley, CD, Pitceathly, RDS, Kurowska-stolarska, M & Clark, AR 2021, 'Inflammation causes remodeling of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase mediated by the bifunctional gene C15orf48', Science Advances, vol. 7, no. 50, eabl5182. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abl5182

Wilhelmsen, A, Tsintzas, K & Jones, S 2021, 'Recent advances and future avenues in understanding the role of adipose tissue cross talk in mediating skeletal muscle mass and function with ageing', GeroScience, vol. 43, pp. 85-110. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-021-00322-4

Nanus, D, Badoume, A, Wijesinghe, S, Halsey, A, Hurley, P, Ahmed, Z, Botchu, R, Davis, E, Lindsay, MA & Jones, S 2021, 'Synovial tissue from sites of joint pain in knee osteoarthritis patients exhibits a differential phenotype with distinct fibroblast subsets', EBioMedicine, vol. 72, 103618. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2021.103618

Alnajjar, FAQ, Sharma-Oates, A, Wijesinghe, S, Farah, H, Nanus, D, Nicholson, T, Davis, E & Jones, S 2021, 'The expression and function of metastases associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript-1 long non-coding RNA in subchondral bone and osteoblasts from patients with osteoarthritis', Cells, vol. 10, no. 4, 786. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells10040786

Philp, AM, Butterworth, S, Davis, ET & Jones, S 2021, 'eNAMPT is localised to areas of cartilage damage in patients with hip osteoarthritis and promotes cartilage catabolism and inflammation', International Journal of Molecular Sciences, vol. 22, no. 13, 6719. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22136719

Pandey, P, Yang, J-H, Tsitsipatis, D, Panda, A, Kim, K, Noh, JH, Munk, R, Nicholson, T, Hanniford, D, Argibay, D, Yang, X, Martindale, J, Chang, M-W, Jones, S, Hernando, E, De, S, Abdelmohsen, K & Gorospe, M 2020, 'CircSamd4 represses myogenic transcriptional activity of PUR proteins', Nucleic Acids Research. https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkaa035

Abstract

Farah, H, Young, S, Davies, ET, Mauro, C & Jones, S 2021, 'Evidence of differential metabotypes in synovial fibroblasts and synovial fluid in obese hip osteoarthritis patients', Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, vol. 29, no. Supplement 1, pp. S19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joca.2021.02.041

Editorial

Nicholson, T, Scott, A, Newton Ede, M & Jones, S 2021, 'Do e-cigarettes and vaping have a lower risk of osteoporosis, nonunion, and infection than tobacco smoking?', Bone and Joint Journal, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 188–191. https://doi.org/10.1302/2046-3758.103.BJR-2020-0327.R1

Review article

Wijesinghe, S, Lindsay, MA & Jones, S 2021, 'Oligonucleotide therapies in the treatment of arthritis: a narrative review', Biomedicines, vol. 9, no. 8, 902. https://doi.org/10.3390/biomedicines9080902

Nicholson, T, Scott, A, Newton Ede, M & Jones, S 2021, 'The impact of E-cigarette vaping and vapour constituents on bone health', Journal of Inflammation, vol. 18, no. 1, 16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12950-021-00283-7

Kucuk, S, Niven, J, Caamano, J, Jones, S, Camacho-muñoz, D, Nicolaou, A & Mauro, C 2021, 'Unwrapping the mechanisms of ceramide and fatty acid-initiated signals leading to immune-inflammatory responses in obesity', The International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology, vol. 135, 105972. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocel.2021.105972

View all publications in research portal