Objective
My central question: how does the human placenta develop and how are specialized trophoblast sub-types generated? Despite advances in placental biology, pregnancy disorders occur frequently with few treatment options available, resulting in considerable maternal and/or infant mortality and morbidity. The cause of these disorders is abnormal early placental development but ethically and practically this is hard to investigate. Developing in vitro models that are truly representative of normal first trimester trophoblast will allow investigation of lineage specification and differentiation. I will take an interdisciplinary approach to characterize the first trimester villous cytotrophoblast (VCT) population. Specifically, I aim to:
1. Characterize the expression of trophoblast stem (TS) cell transcription factors and epigenetically regulated genes to identify the anatomical compartment(s) containing population(s) with stem cell characteristics
2. Isolate VCT using a specific cell surface marker and perform an in-depth molecular characterization at a single cell level to identify putative TS cells
3. Characterize cell signalling pathways in the VCT and in the putative TS cell population
4. Establish cell culture conditions for TS cells
5. Perform a detailed characterization of cells cultured in vitro
This proposal has arisen from preliminary results obtained working in Centre for Trophoblast Research, University of Cambridge. Working in a lab with extensive experience of trophoblast isolation (Prof. A.Moffett) and input from our collaborators, Dr. M.Hemberger and Prof. G.Burton who have experience in mouse TS cells and human placental function in vivo, respectively has been pivotal. I am thus in an ideal position to capitalize on this expertise together with other stem cell labs in Cambridge to develop essential tools and knowledge to understand early developmental processes during placentation. It also has important translational impact for women and their babies.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- social sciences sociology demography mortality
- natural sciences biological sciences cell biology cell signaling
- medical and health sciences medical biotechnology cells technologies stem cells
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine obstetrics
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Programme(s)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IEF
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Funding Scheme
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
CB2 1TN Cambridge
United Kingdom
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