The goal of the Interdisciplinary Reproduction & Health Group (IRHG) Seminar Series is to highlight transdisciplinary precision research taking place in the reproductive health field, provide opportunities for collaboration among researchers to build their own research efforts and promote clinical/researcher activity across the University of Missouri System and our partners.

The IRHG was organized and established through a faculty-driven, grass roots effort in 2016 to develop an integrative interdisciplinary program that transcends traditional departmental, college and system boundaries to foster excellence in reproduction, health research and education at Mizzou.

View all upcoming Reproductive Health events on the IRHG Seminar Series website.

For questions about this event, please reach out to Wipawee Winuthayanon.

Reprogramming in Gametes and Early Embryos

Speaker: Edward Grow, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, School of Medicine, University of Texas Southern Medical Center.

Date: Nov. 20, 2024, 4pm

Location: Atkins Family Seminar Room, Roy Blunt NextGen Precision Health Building. 

About the Speaker

Grow Lab at UT Southwestern Medical Center:

The development of the egg, and subsequently the fertilized embryo, provides continuity between generations. However, we have an incomplete understanding of:

1. How does oogenesis promote oocytes to develop into eggs?
2. How does the egg provision the embryo and prepare it for development?
3. How do we build and nourish oocytes/eggs from stem cells and culture them ex vivo?

To this end, the Grow lab takes genome-wide, single-cell, and computational approaches to deeply understand epigenome and transcriptome landscapes and how they are reprogrammed. In particular, we focus on the molecular event known as embryonic genome activation (EGA)–the exciting final act in the “egg to embryo” transition that is largely driven by the egg.

We use a variety of experimental systems such as in vitro follicle culture, stem cells, and preimplantation embryos while leveraging our location in the Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences and affiliation with the Ob/Gyn department.