This research project is in collaboration with Dr. Keith Isaacson, Director of the Minimally Invasive Gynecology Surgery Center, at Newton Wellesley Hospital. The overall objective of the project is to build functional assays for why endometrial cells refluxed into the peritoneum adhere to the peritoneal lining in some women, an event strongly implicated in the etiology of endometriosis. Little is known about the properties of these cells, including their prevalence. We are developing a combination of biomaterials sensors and systems biology approaches to shed light on the behavior of these cells, and their interactions with immune cells and other cells in the peritoneum.

There are a few possible directions for a student project. An obvious direction is to aid in the experimental aspects of the project: the student will work closely with the PI and a research team at MIT and Harvard Medical School (currently two postdocs and a graduate student, in close collaboration with Dr. Isaacson) to culture the primary peritoneal cells, assess their colony formation abilities under different conditions, and assess their properties and responses to various stimuli. A major emphasis of the overall project is to illuminate autocrine and paracrine growth factor and cytokine loops and their interplay with ECM. A second direction is more analytical/mathematical and involves analysis of the probability of various steps in the process of lesion formation to develop hypotheses about how the formation of lesions may be self-limiting.

For the experimental project, previous experience in biology and chemistry lab is required.

Participation in this project requires at least 10 hours per week and will require some schedule coordination, as most work focuses on primary tissue samples collected from patients at Newton Wellesley Hospital on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays. The team research meetings are typically the third Wednesday of each month from 4 to 5:30 p.m., alternating between NWH and MIT. The student will also participate in frequent smaller group meetings to discuss experiment planning and data.