OEB Seminar Series: Kara McKinley
Date and Time
Location
Assistant Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology
Harvard Stem Cell Institute
Harvard University
Regeneration in the uterus
Abstract: The lining of the uterus (endometrium) is a tremendously powerful system to understand regeneration. During menstruation, the endometrium sheds millimeters of complex tissue alongside substantial bleeding. The endometrium is destroyed and rebuilt approximately 400 times over the reproductive lifespan, rendering it an exceptional resource to uncover mechanisms of regeneration in a human context. Moreover, understanding this remarkable tissue is critical to address the longstanding unmet needs of hundreds of millions of patients around the world with infertility, endometriosis, adenomyosis, endometrial cancers, and abnormal uterine bleeding. Even though approximately 1.4 billion people worldwide are menstruating, our molecular understanding of this recurring life event is sparse. This circumstance arises, in part, because menstruation is an extremely rare trait among mammals. Most mammals, including common laboratory animals such as mice and rats, do not menstruate. I will present our ongoing work to understand how menstruation evolved with the goal of generating a transgenic mouse that menstruates.
Host: Professor Mansi Srivastava