Title: Understanding the molecular function of the endometrium in early pregnancy: implications for fertility, food, and health.
Speaker: Dr Niamh Forde, University of Leeds
Details: December 4th at 4pm in Hodgkin Huxley seminar room
Summary: Dr Niamh Forde is a University Academic Fellow and group leader based in the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds since September 2015. Her group is focused on understanding the molecular interactions between the uterine endometrium and the embryo and how the maternal environment and sex of the embryo influences these interactions. We focus on early pregnancy events (typically the first 1-3 weeks of pregnancy) as this is when most pregnancy loss occurs in mammalian species. We work on a number of species (cattle, pigs, humans) using a number of in vitro (including micro-fluidics approaches) and in vivo approaches as well as omics technologies to understand fundamentally how the uterus works for food, fertility and health. We are particularly interested in the role components of extracellular vesicles play in these processes (including miRNAs, lncRNAs and proteins). She also is co-founder and co-director of Leeds Omics (www.leedsomics.org) a virtual cross-faculty research institute she established at the University of Leeds.
Dr Forde has >60 peer reviewed papers in the top journals in the field of reproductive biology, a h-index of 31, and over 3,220 citations. She is regularly invited to speak at the leading conferences in the field (SSR, SBTE, Fertility, ADSA, ESDAR). She is also an editor for the journals Reproduction. She serves as a consultant to the United Nations on early pregnancy in cattle (since 2014).