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Centre for Trophoblast Research

 

Research

Research summary
Small for gestational age (SGA) infants are at increased risk of a number of adverse outcomes, including stillbirth, neonatal death, sudden infant death syndrome, cerebral palsy, having a record of special educational needs, and a range of diseases in later life. Some of these adverse outcomes are potentially amenable to intervention. Although a number of serum biomarkers for SGA infants have been identified, the associations are generally too weak to be clinically useful as screening tests in isolation. We aim to study the placenta as a means of identifying novel markers for pathological SGA by comparing transcript profiles in placental samples from SGA infants and matched controls born at term and validating key differentially expressed genes in a separate series of cases and matched controls using qRT-PCR, Western blot and immunohistochemistry.

Funding: MRC

Publications

Key publications: 

1) Dopierala J, Damato BE, Taktak AFG, Lake SL, Coupland SE. Genetic heterogeneity in uveal melanoma assessed by Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification.Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2010 Oct;51(10):4898-905. Epub 2010 May 19.

2) Damato BE, Dopierala J, Coupland SE. Genotypic profiling of 452 choroidal melanomas with Multiplex Ligation-dependent probe Amplification. Clin Cancer Res. 2010 Dec 15;16(24):6083-92. Epub 2010 Oct 25.

3) Lake SL, Kalirai H, Dopierala J, Damato BE, Coupland SE. Comparison of formalin-fixed and snap-frozen samples analyzed by multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification for prognostic testing in uveal melanoma. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2012 May 4;53(6):2647-52. Print 2012.

Research Associate

Contact Details

+44 (0)1223 336874

Affiliations