Michael D. Collins, Ph.D.
mdc@ucla.edu

Dr. Collins received a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Missouri in Columbia. He then held postdoctoral fellowships at the Harvard School of Public Health and at Children's Hospital Research Foundation/University of Cincinnati. He subsequently became a faculty member in the Developmental Biology program at Cincinnati and did a sabbatical at the Freie Universitat in Berlin. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and an Associate Director of Student Affairs in the Interdepartmental Program in Molecular Toxicology.

Research in the Collins laboratory is generally concerned with aspects of developmental toxicology or teratology. A common theme for many of the ongoing projects is understanding gene-environment interactions. Current projects include the following: (a) determining the chromosomal loci and eventually isolating the genes responsible for a murine strain difference in the induction of forelimb defects by cadmium or retinoic acid using quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis, gene expression profiling, and proteomics, (b) fine mapping as a prelude to positionally cloning a gene on mouse chromosome 3 (cdm) that was determined to cause resistance to cadmium-induced testicular toxicity and sensitivity to cadmium-induced forelimb defects, (c) gene-gene and gene-environment interactions in the induction of teratogenesis with a mutant form of the mouse Pax3 gene (aka Splotch), and (d) studies to determine the role of retinoids in normal and abnormal neural tube closure via analyses of the nuclear receptors and interactions with genes and nutrients.

Current Doctoral Students:
Ahmed Elsaid
Grace Lee
Xiaoyan Liao
Elizabeth Marshall
Lisa Martin
Euisun Park
Hirohito Shimizu

Current Master Students:
Josephine Ho