The research in my laboratory involves two separate projects to explore the action of female sex hormones in health and disease. For many years we have studied how the hormone progesterone prepares the mother to accept the early embryo and become pregnant. We are particularly interested in the uterine cells that form the maternal part of the placenta called the decidua. The proliferation (increase in cell number) and differentiation (conversion from stroma to decidua) of these cells is regulated by progesterone and estrogen. How these sex hormones stimulate two different but related processes in the same cells is the centerpiece of our research effort.

The second project arose out of a collaboration that I began several years ago with Dr. Nabih Abdou, a rheumatologist, at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Kansas City. The occurrence of the autoimmune disease systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus) occurs more frequently in women than in men (9:1 female to male). Our research suggests that the female hormone estrogen increases the expression of genes that are involved in T cell activation and therefore may hyperstimulate the immune system in women with lupus. We are investigating the mechanisms by which estrogen stimulates lupus but not normal T cells. Please investigate the publications from our laboratory to obtain more information on either of these research projects.

Current Students: Brent Cameron, Stacy Jones, Meryl Twarog

Abstracts:

• Wingless (Wnt) Signaling: The Initiator of Progesterone-Dependent Action on Uterine Stromal Cell Proliferation. [see abstract]

• Cyclin D3 Expression Correlates with G1 Transit in Synchronously Proliferating Rat Uterine Stromal Cells. [see abstract]

• Cloning of the Human Calcineurin Gene Promoter and Identification of Consensus DNA Regulatory Regions. [see abstract]