Richard Collins

Lab Research Project Coordinator (1998 – Present)

Current Project:  The role that scavenger receptors CD36, SR-BI and LIMP-II play in lipid and cholesterol transport.

Previously:  At the University of Toronto, Department of Botany, he cloned and sequenced plant viruses and produced transgenic plants resistant to plant viruses.  He also cloned a circular satellite RNA of Rice Yellow Mottle Virus.  At 220 nucleotides it is the world’s smallest genome.  He demonstrated that it coded for a self-cleaving hammerhead ribozyme and a single protein-coding-gene.

Education:  He completed his B.Sc in Microbiology from the University of Toronto.

Activities:  In the spring and summer he can be found racing sailboats every week, hiking along the Bruce Trail, or training for a half-marathon.  In the fall he will be fishing for rainbow trout or salmon on Lake Ontario tributaries.  In the winter you can find him carving up the slopes of Blue Mountain.

Favourite Quote:  “An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” – Niels Bohr