Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Our goals are to elucidate the molecular and biological underpinnings of reproductive disorders, including central precocious puberty, hypothalamic amenorrhea, polycystic ovarian syndrome and infertility, using clinical, genetic and laboratory observations and findings in humans, investigations in mouse models, and in vitro studies, including human pluripotent stem cells and other cell models. Basic laboratory skills and an interest in endocrinology are helpful. Our approaches include studies of: 1. Human inducible pluripotent stem cell models of hypothalamic neurons and pituitary cells. 2. In vitro studies using cellular, molecular, and proteomic approaches. 3. In vivo mouse models. 4. Human studies of patients with clinical neuroendocrine and reproductive endocrine disorders. Potential Student Roles: 1. Assist with reproductive phenotyping of genetically modified mouse models (e.g., pubertal markers, estrous cyclicity). 2. Assist with human genetic studies, including review of human subject clinical data to correlate genetic findings with clinical phenotypes, DNA sequencing and sequence analysis, and analyses of exome and genome sequence data. 3. Contribute to laboratory studies using human inducible pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived hypothalamic neurons. 4. Assist with other in vitro molecular and proteomic studies using immortalized cell lines.