Profile

Biography

I completed a degree in Marine Zoology (Wales) then a PhD in Geology (Glasgow, Scottish Marine Biological Information) before NERC and Royal Society Fellowships at Glasgow and Leiden (Chemistry and Biochemistry) and postdoctoral research at Bristol (Biogeochemistry). I first lectured in Biogeochemistry (Newcastle) before moving to York in 2003 to establish BioArCh, an interdisciplinary grouping of Biologists, Archaeologists and Chemists with access to shared space and facilities on campus, within the Bioscience complex.

My research focuses on old proteins. I attempt to identify samples by differences in protein sequence,  date samples by the extent of protein degradation and if both fail, to understand pathways of decay in archaeological materials

Research

Overview

Collins arrived in York to form BioArCh, a joint initiative between the Departments of Biology (our labs are in S Block, Biology) Chemistry and Archaeology to further the use of biomolecular methods to tackle archaeological problems. S Block has recently seen a significant expansion of numbers with the arrival of GeneTime and Palaeo.

Collins is interested in the use of ancient proteins to solve archaeological questions. The BioArch research team has achieved breakthroughs in amino acid racemization dating (Penkman) to help date the British and European Quaternary. His team has completed major research on dairying in NE Europe from the Chalcolithic to the Early Iron Age, using new immunological based methods to detect species-specific milk proteins on pottery (with Oliver Craig).

Collins's group has also used soft-ionization mass spectrometry to detect proteins in ancient fossils, leading to the first successful sequencing of proteins from Neanderthals. His group are now using the approach to develop rapid screening for species identification (Buckley) and to detect pathological changes (Koon).

Research group(s)

• Bioarchaeology
  
• BioArCh
  

Grants

LeCHE (Nienke van Doorn)

AHRC Fish Project (Hannah Koon, Jen Harland)

NERC Eggshell Project (Beatrice Demarchi)

Synthesys II (David Harker)

Ancient Textiles (Caroline Solazzo)

Available PhD research projects

Molecular perspectives on slave health and disease (for 2012 - 13)

EUROTAST EU Marie Curie Early Stage Research Fellowship:

Recent advances in protein mass-spectrometry can potentially offer new insights into i) dietary deficiencies and ii) pathogenic diseases of enslaved Africans. We know from historical records that slaves suffered from a wide range of diseases mainly due to dietary deficiencies and malnutrition. However, due to the limited medical knowledge at the time and the scant medical attention that the slaves were given, it is generally very difficult to identify specific diseases and to study their aetiology. Building on previous work in our group, we will develop a high-throughput screening technique to detect changes in collagen structures that might be indicative of deficiency diseases, using material obtained in collaboration with colleagues in the Marie Curie ITN on the History, Archaeology and New Genetics of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, EUROTAST.

Supervision

PhD students

• Isabella von Holstein
• Nienke van Doorn
• Jo Powell
  
• Marc Wadsley
• John Stewart
• Simon McGrory
  

Teaching

Undergraduate

Undergraduate Teaching

Year 1

Year 2

Practical Skills

Team Project

Year 3

Assessed Se,minar

Postgraduate

• MSc in Bioarchaeology

External activities

Memberships

• First Professor (Bijzonder Hoogleraar) in Biomolecular Archaeology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
• Honorary Professor China University of Geosciences
• Former Member of the Treibs Committee of the Geochemical Society (Chair in 2007)
• Former Member of the NERC Earth Science Committee, then NERC college
• Member NHM Scientific Advisory Panel (Human Remains)
• Member of NERC LSMSF Steering Committee
• Expert witness European Pharmacopoeia
• Consultant SAFEED-PAP Project

Editorial duties

• Editorial Board: Quaternary Geochronology

Invited talks and conferences

• Keynote Speaker: Reuvensdagen 2006, 1st & 2nd International Symposia on Biomolecular Archaeology (Amsterdam & Stockholm), aDNA7 Brisbane
• Invited speaker, PittCon Chicago; Bone Diagenesis, Madrid; Archaeomaterials, Erice, Sicily; Jerusalem