PhD Project

The human endometrium is the innermost lining of the uterus and consists of two layers; the functional layer (stratum functionalis) and the basal layer (stratum basalis). Whilst the structure of the basal layer remains relatively constant, the functional layer is a highly dynamic tissue and undergoes cyclic menstruation, regeneration and secretory transformation. On average, a complete cycle lasts for 28 days and is centred around creating the optimal environment for embryo implantation. Proper functioning of the endometrium is not only imperative for successful implantation, but also the continuation of pregnancy.

Endometrial stromal cells (EnSCs) are the major component of the functional endometrium, providing an immuno-privileged matrix that acts to surround the implanting blastocyst. Unsurprisingly, defects in decidualization are known to be the underlying cause of a plethora of pregnancy complications such as recurrent implantation failure, miscarriage and pre-eclampsia. Despite this, the development of viable therapeutics has been limited, attributable to insufficient understanding of the biological pathways underpinning the profound changes initiated upon endocrine signalling.

The aim of my PhD project is to investigate the decidual response in-vitro, elucidating the epigenomic and transcriptomic changes through paired RNA-sequencing and ATAC-sequencing. In order to reconstruct signalling pathways from these data-sets, I hope to develop a method to integrate these data-sets to allow the mapping of in-vitro data to an in-vivo dataset recently produced in the Brosens Lab.

Eportfolio

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