2024 ESA-SRB-ANZBMS Annual Meeting

Congratulations to Dr Ellen Menkhorst and Michaela Sacco from the Reproductive Biology Group based at Royal Women’s Hospital who were both awarded at the recent SRB annual meeting. Dr Ellen Menkhorst won the Mercy Perinatal Mid-Career Women's Health Medal and Michaela Sacco won the SRB David Healy New Investigator Award. The ESA-SRB-ANZBMS Annual Scientific Meeting at the Adelaide Convention Centre, South Australia from the 10-13 November 2024.

Dr Menkhorst was awarded the Mercy Perinatal Mid-Career Women's Health Medal in recognition of their impressive body of work in the field of women’s health and for the significant impact with their work in reproduction. Dr Menkhorst also presented ‘Discovering the early pregnancy placental dysfunction underlying preeclampsia’ at the 2024 SRB annual meeting.

Michaela Sacco won the SRB David Healy New Investigator Award for their project ‘Single cell analysis of fertile and infertile endometrial epithelial organoids identified novel genes associated with endometrial receptivity’.

This study characterised the cellular and transcriptomic differences between fertile and infertile human endometrium by performing long-read single cell RNA sequencing of endometrial epithelial organoids. By sequencing these cells we were able to create a map of the endometrial epithelium and associate cell function with location to better understand their unique roles in receptivity. When comparing fertile and infertile organoids, we discovered differentially expressed genes specific to cell subtypes. Helping us understand how dysregulated gene expression in different cells impact endometrial function uniquely, potentially shedding light on why previously identified factors from bulk RNA sequencing have not been successful indicators of receptivity. Additionally, using long-read sequencing we are starting to understand the endometrial specific importance of isoforms and non-coding regions. This research is helping to fill in gaps in our knowledge about endometrial function and is starting to create a more complete picture of what is actually going wrong in cases of implantation failure and associated infertility.