ORS PSRS Plenary Lecture
Jill Urban, PhD, Oxford University
Regulation of Disc Cell Behavior by the Physicochemical Environment

Monday, November 9
4:15 PM

Jill Urban, PhD is an emeritus senior research fellow in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics Oxford University. Her research group works on physiology of cartilaginous tissues with a particular interest on the regulation of the extracellular physical environment in the intervertebral disc. Their work has also focused on cellular responses to change in this environment in regard to osmolarity, to factors influencing nutrient supply and to mechanical stresses. Her group has close and long-standing collaborations with Professor Sally Roberts in Oswestry who has provided molecular expertise, with Professor Jeremy Fairbank, Professor of Spinal Surgery in Oxford, who has supplied waste surgical tissue for numerous studies and with Professor Shirazi-Adl in Montreal who through modeling studies has made important contributions to the understanding of nutrient transport into the avascular disc.