2006-12-19
Reynolds returns from collaborative research trip to Italy
Lawrence Reynolds, professor of animal and
range sciences and co-director of the Center for Nutrition and Pregnancy,
recently returned from a five-week visit to Italy to conduct collaborative
research.
The collaboration is with a husband and wife team, Lino Loi and Grazyna Ptak, who are on the faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University, Teramo, Italy. “These two collaborators are world-class embryologists,” Reynolds said, noting that Loi was a part of the team of scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland that developed the first somatic cell nuclear transfer (the current preferred method of embryo ‘cloning’), leading to the birth of the now-famous sheep, “Dolly.”
The collaborative research project is focused on evaluating why pregnancies fail at a relatively high rate in embryos created in vitro when using so-called “assisted reproductive technologies,” such as in vitro fertilization and somatic cell nuclear transfer (the former method used in humans and animals, and the latter method used exclusively in animals). “These types of embryos seem to have a hard time establishing a successful pregnancy, and although we have some clues as to why, we need to verify our hypotheses in a rigorous way with controlled studies,” said Reynolds. “That is why we will use sheep as a model, to try to understand what is going wrong, and to see if we can develop strategies to correct the problems.”
The collaboration also involves Anna Grazul-Bilska, associate professor of animal and range sciences and scientist in the Center for Nutrition and Pregnancy, who is a widely recognized expert in sheep embryology. Additional collaborators include Robert Feil, Institute of Molecular Genetics, CNRS, University of Montpellier, France, who is one of the world’s leading experts on epigenetic regulation of genes during embryonic development, and Michael Clinton, Department of Gene Expression and Development, Roslin Institute, Scotland, who is one of the world’s leading experts on regulation of protein expression by micro-RNAs. “Both of these mechanisms are likely to explain a large proportion of the problems we see in these embryos—one (epigenetics) explaining how genes are regulated and the other (micro-RNAs) acting as ‘molecular switches’ to turn off or on production of proteins during embryonic development,” said Grazul-Bilska.
Thi international team has several grant proposals pending, including proposals to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the European Union’s Human Frontiers Science Program and the Italian Ministry of Science. Reynolds’ visit is part of an ongoing effort to obtain preliminary data for these grant proposals, and was funded in part by the Department of Animal and Range Sciences, the Agricultural Experiment Station and NDSU Research Administration, and also by the University of Teramo, Italy.
Reynolds, Grazul-Bilska and a post-doctoral fellow in their group, Pawel Borowicz, have together spent approximately 6 months in Italy working on the project and have several publications with their Italian collaborators.
The collaboration is with a husband and wife team, Lino Loi and Grazyna Ptak, who are on the faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University, Teramo, Italy. “These two collaborators are world-class embryologists,” Reynolds said, noting that Loi was a part of the team of scientists at the Roslin Institute in Scotland that developed the first somatic cell nuclear transfer (the current preferred method of embryo ‘cloning’), leading to the birth of the now-famous sheep, “Dolly.”
The collaborative research project is focused on evaluating why pregnancies fail at a relatively high rate in embryos created in vitro when using so-called “assisted reproductive technologies,” such as in vitro fertilization and somatic cell nuclear transfer (the former method used in humans and animals, and the latter method used exclusively in animals). “These types of embryos seem to have a hard time establishing a successful pregnancy, and although we have some clues as to why, we need to verify our hypotheses in a rigorous way with controlled studies,” said Reynolds. “That is why we will use sheep as a model, to try to understand what is going wrong, and to see if we can develop strategies to correct the problems.”
The collaboration also involves Anna Grazul-Bilska, associate professor of animal and range sciences and scientist in the Center for Nutrition and Pregnancy, who is a widely recognized expert in sheep embryology. Additional collaborators include Robert Feil, Institute of Molecular Genetics, CNRS, University of Montpellier, France, who is one of the world’s leading experts on epigenetic regulation of genes during embryonic development, and Michael Clinton, Department of Gene Expression and Development, Roslin Institute, Scotland, who is one of the world’s leading experts on regulation of protein expression by micro-RNAs. “Both of these mechanisms are likely to explain a large proportion of the problems we see in these embryos—one (epigenetics) explaining how genes are regulated and the other (micro-RNAs) acting as ‘molecular switches’ to turn off or on production of proteins during embryonic development,” said Grazul-Bilska.
Thi international team has several grant proposals pending, including proposals to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the European Union’s Human Frontiers Science Program and the Italian Ministry of Science. Reynolds’ visit is part of an ongoing effort to obtain preliminary data for these grant proposals, and was funded in part by the Department of Animal and Range Sciences, the Agricultural Experiment Station and NDSU Research Administration, and also by the University of Teramo, Italy.
Reynolds, Grazul-Bilska and a post-doctoral fellow in their group, Pawel Borowicz, have together spent approximately 6 months in Italy working on the project and have several publications with their Italian collaborators.
