News archive 2008
2008
Three Tommy's Funded Research Conference
This research conference was organised in October as an opportunity to bring together staff and students from the 3 Tommy's funded Research Centres in Manchester, London and Edinburgh; to showcase the Research Centre portfolios, to establish collaborations and to discuss ideas for a 3 Centre Research Strategy. The programme included presentations from young investigators from all 3 Centres - focusing on complications of pregnancy, lifestyle factors affecting pregnancy outcome and animal models and programming. These were supported by a poster session that focused on techniques and methodology used in research.
This was the first 3 Centre Conference which demonstrated our ambitious spirit to conduct interdisciplinary research that helps us to find solutions to pregnancy problems, and was a fantastic platform for drawing the national Tommy's network together to improve the translation of this into treatment for women and their babies.
'Statins are detrimental to human placental development and function: use of statins during early pregnancy is inadvisable'
Manuscript by Karen Forbes, Lucy M Hurst, J Martin Gibson, John D Aplin and Melissa Westwood has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Cellular and Molecular Medicine.
The diabesity epidemic will lead to an increase in the treatment of women of reproductive age with statins (HMG CoA reductase inhibitors). This research - conducted by researchers in the Maternal and Fetal Health Research Group and Genomics Research - has shown that such drugs are detrimental to the early development of the human placenta. Given that reduced placental growth is strongly correlated with poor pregnancy outcome, statins should not be used by women planning to start a family or once a pregnancy is suspected or confirmed.
Studentship awards
- Alex Heazell and Sue Greenwood have been awarded a Society for Gynecologic Investigation Medical and PhD Graduate Student Stipend for Research in Reproduction Program worth USD$2000.00. The money has funded Aparna Mummadi for her 4th year Medical Student Project Option, May-July 2008, working with Alex, Sue and Colin Sibley to investigate the effects of oxygen tension and epidermal growth factor on system A transport in placental villous explants.
- Diane Atkinson and her co-applicant Jeff Penny (School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science) have been awarded a BBSRC industrial studentship for 4 years. The industrial partner is SYNGENTA and the title of the project that Louise Taylor will be working on with Diane and Jeff is “interaction of placenta efflux transporters with xenbiotics”.
Summer studentships
- Laura Skinner is a 2nd year Biomedical Sciences Student at the University of Manchester. Funded by a Society for Endocrinology Summer Studentship, Laura will be working with Karen Forbes on “using siRNA to examine the role of SHP-1 in regulating IGF-mediated effects in the human placenta”.
- Maame Obeng is also a 2nd year Biomedical Sciences Student at the University, and will be contributing to Karen’s work on “investigating the role of IGF1R in regulating IGF-mediated effects in the human placenta using siRNA” whilst funded by a Wellcome Trust Summer Vacation Scholarship (through the Faculty of Life Sciences).
- Vinit Shah is a 3rd year Medical Student and is also funded by a Wellcome Trust Summer Vacation Scholarship (through the School of Medicine) and will be “investigating the effect of statins on placental development and function” with Karen.