UCSF Medical Center, Center for Reproductive Health

UCSF Medical Center, Center for Reproductive Health

The major goal of our NCTRI Center at UCSF is to translate findings from basic studies to improve the reproductive health of women and men and fertility and outcomes of pregnancies and children conceived by couples with infertility. Our long-term goals are to devise novel strategies for the prevention of infertility and to develop novel fertility diagnostics and targeted therapeutics. To this end our Center integrates the complementary investigative disciplines of molecular, cellular, and stem cell biology and genetics with clinical investigation to facilitate bench-to-bedside transfer of fundamental knowledge. Project 1 and Core A Pilot are providing novel insights into the molecular basis and molecular markers of oocyte developmental competence and early embryo development in the mouse, critical to improve current assisted reproductive technologies in humans. Understanding mechanisms underlying trophoblast differentiation from progenitors (Project 2) and post-transcriptionally (Project 3) in the human and mouse, respectively, have direct relevance to normal and abnormal placental development and understanding the human pregnancy disorder preeclampsia. Project 4 focuses on human endometrium, the "soil" in which an embryo implants and is directly relevant to infertility (e.g., endometriosis) and implantation disorders with poor pregnancy outcomes (e.g., preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction,  miscarriage). The Pilot project is translational, as it studies mechanisms underlying endometrial dysfunction in women with endometriosis. Thus, all of the projects have studies that investigate basic physiology or pathophysiology in humans or are translatable to humans.

The Center for Reproductive Sciences has awarded funding for three Pilot Project Proposals from the UCSF NIH National Center for Translational Research in Reproduction and Infertility (NCTRI). These Pilot projects are related to the Center’s central theme of early human development and the origins and biological consequences of human infertility. Paolo Rinaudo, Carol Anderson, and Nadia Roan were recipients of the awards for this year.