Dr Katrina Moss
Title: Delayed diagnosis of endometriosis disadvantages women in ART
Bio: Dr Moss is a registered psychologist and early career researcher in the Australian Women and Girls’ Health Research Centre at the University of Queensland. Her research focuses on women’s reproductive health, including assisted reproduction, maternal mental health, child development, and the intersection between maternal and child health.
Overview: This presentation will explore the links between endometriosis and the outcomes of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). Specifically, it will use linked data from participants in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s health to compare ART outcomes between women without endometriosis, women who were diagnosed before starting ART and women who were diagnosed after starting ART. This population-based cohort provides insights that complement those from clinical research, and the findings underscore the importance of early diagnosis.
Zoe Hunter
Title: Exploring the potential role of the choroid plexus in mediating hyperexcitability in patient-derived organoids
Bio: In 2021, Zoe Hunter graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Science (majoring in Genetics) with first class honours, and a Deans Commendation. Her honours research focussed on modelling epilepsy in patient-specific brain organoids for assessing their drug screening potential. Zoe has since begun a PhD at UQ with the same group, under the continued supervision of Professor Ernst Wolvetang and Associate Professor Lata Vadlamudi, and is now working on utilising these patient specific brain organoid models to gain further insight into potential drivers of epilepsy. It is hoped that this innovative platform will enable patient-specific disease modelling as well as drug testing, to facilitate a more human-centric and personalised approach to the understanding of epilepsy and potential treatments.
Summary: Epilepsy is a major neurological disorder affecting millions around the world. Understanding the driving forces behind the seizures which are characteristic of epilepsy disorders is critical for improving understanding of the development of the disorder, as well as future treatments. Recent work has begun to elucidate the role of choroid plexus dysfunction in neurological disorders, and it is possible that alterations in the functionality of choroid plexus epithelial cells may contribute to epilepsy.
To address the potential role of the choroid plexus, this project shall focus on developing both choroid plexus and cortical brain organoids from epilepsy patient cell lines with the aim to investigate how choroid plexus epithelial cell receptors such as adenosine A2A, and channels such as TRPV1, as well as pro-inflammatory cytokines, affect these cells, and accordingly, the blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier. It is hypothesised that changes to the expression profiles of the receptors and channels in the choroid plexus epithelial cells contribute to seizure susceptibility and epileptogenesis, and this shall be investigated using these patient-derived models.
It is hoped that this project will provide insights into the development and progression of hyperexcitability at an in vitro patient-specific level.
About UQ Centre for Clinical Research Seminars
The UQ Centre of Clinical Research (CCR) Seminars are held fortnightly on Wednesdays from 12pm - 1pm (except during school holidays) in the CCR Auditorium, Herston. The series features topics in the field of research, presented by invited international, interstate and local researchers.