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Randy L. Zimmer, M.S., Senior Research Specialist. Randy joined me in my research and human in vitro fertilization laboratories in 1990, about four months after I accepted my current position. His was the first technical assistant I hired and has been invaluable over the years. He is highly skilled in cell culture and numerous proteomic approaches. Randy worked with me in our original projects detecting and isolating endometriotic lesion secretory proteins in humans and over the years on project of the function of these proteins. He has also mastered studies of macrophage function and anomalies of immune surveillance in endometriosis. He is a co-author on many of our publications and scientific presentations dating back to 1990. Randy can also fix just about anything. Currently, Randy is primarily working at our new Center for Reproductive Medicine and Fertility as a technical expert and daily manager of the embryology laboratories.
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Henda Nabli, M.S., Research Specialist. Henda joined our research team in 2003. Her technical expertise includes molecular biology, proteomic and glycomic approaches and she is also skilled in cell culture research. Henda is also a valuable resource for our students. Henda has worked on projects including the role of carbohydrates in endometriotic haptoglobin function, the effects of inflammatory cytokines on endometrial haptoglobin production in women with endometriosis and studies of reduced fecundity in our rat model of endometriosis. She is a co-author on several publications and scientific presentations from our laboratory.
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Takeshi Nagamatsu, M.D., Postdoctoral Fellow. Dr. Nagamatsu, is working with Dr. Breton Barrier in studies of placental pathophysiology. Hew have been in our group for about 1 and ½ years. Takeshi is exploring the mechanism of maternal tolerance to fetal antigens at the maternal-fetal interface. He has developed a nice cell co-culture system using term decidual tissue (attached to the placental membranes) combined with naive allogenic T-lymphocytes from an unrelated donor. The co-cultures include purified decidual macrophages (DM) or decidual stromal cells (DSCs). He has characterized the expression of costimulatory molecules (B7H1, B7H2, PD-1) in both populations using flow cytometry, and measured the effect of these cells on activation of naive lymphocytes with various interactions blocked by antibodies. He is also evaluating the expression of HLA-G in the endometrial tissues (specifically DMs) in response to various coculture conditions.
He has found that these costimulatory molecules are of pivotal significance in the development of regulatory T-cells (evidenced by Foxp3 expression), and blocking the PD-1/ PDligand interaction leads to development of lymphocytes of opposite polarity (Th1). |
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