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GDCB Seminar: 'Modeling the major disorders of pregnancy, preeclampsia and gestational diabetes'

Nov 13, 2018 - 4:10 PM
to Nov 13, 2018 - 5:00 PM
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Laura Schulz

Speaker: Laura Schulz, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Women's Health at the University of Missouri, School of Medicine 

Title: Modeling the major disorders of pregnancy, preeclampsia and gestational diabetes

Abstract: Gestational diabetes and preeclampsia are two of the most common complications of pregnancy. For both diseases, progress has been hampered by the lack of appropriate model systems. I will discuss my lab’s work on developing models of each. Preeclampsia is characterized by insufficient trophoblast remodeling of maternal spiral arteries, an effect that can be observed after delivery. However, the invasion process occurs early in pregnancy, before it is possible to diagnose preeclampsia. Over the last decade, our lab and others have refined a cell culture model of human placental development based on pluripotent stem cells. Recently, we have reprogrammed umbilical cord cells collected from preeclamptic and normal pregnancies to create induced pluripotent stem cells that can then be differentiated to placental cells, in order to study their behavior during the invasive stage of placental development. Clinical data suggest that the pathophysiology of gestational diabetes is distinct in obese and lean women, who each make up roughly half the affected population, yet most studies of gestational diabetes don’t distinguish between them. We have developed a mouse model of gestational diabetes based on acute high fat diet exposure that recapitulates the pattern of gestational diabetes in lean women, with insulin resistance in early pregnancy, and insulin insufficiency in late pregnancy.  Our studies suggest that lean gestational diabetes may have unique consequences for offspring health.

Host: Geetu Tuteja

Please join us for refreshments before the seminar outside Room 1414 in the Molecular Biology Building beginning at 3:45 p.m.