Dr Tereza Cindrova-Davies

Tereza Cindrova-Davies received her MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge. Tereza worked as a research fellow at the University of Cambridge between 2003-2022, held a lectureship in Human Genetics and Developmental Biology/Embryology at the Queen Mary University of London between 2022-2023, before returning back to the Centre of Trophoblast Research in January 2024 to take on the role of the Licensing Manager.

Tereza has been awarded international prizes for her research, including the Elsevier Science New Investigator Award at the IFPA meeting in Glasgow in 2005, and the Gabor Than award for ‘outstanding contributions to the field of placentology in all its aspects’, at the IFPA meeting in Graz in 2008.

Tereza’s research has embraced the role of oxidative stress in normal and pathological pregnancies, placental senescence and H2S in pregnancy pathologies. Early pregnancy is a key area of Tereza’s current research interests. Her recent research concentrates on investigating early placental development, the role of the human yolk sac and histotrophic nutrition.

Tereza has been instrumental in developing human and mouse organoid cultures, and used these to investigate the function of the endometrial glands in early pregnancy. In addition, she recently succeeded in deriving physiologically relevant endometrial organoid cultures non-invasively from menstrual flow. Her future research is directed to explore why the majority of human pregnancies fail, either before implantation or as a result of early pregnancy loss.

Selected publications

• Cindrova-Davies T, Zhao X, Elder K, Moffett A, Burton GJ, Turco MY. (2021) Menstrual flow as a non-invasive source of endometrial organoids. Communications Biology. 4(1), 651
• Cindrova-Davies T, Jauniaux E, Elliot MG, Gong S, Burton GJ, Charnock-Jones DS (2017). RNA-seq reveals conservation of function among the yolk sacs of human, mouse, and chicken. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A.; 114(24):E4753-E4761. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1702560114.
• Cindrova-Davies T, Herrera EA, Niu Y, Kingdom J, Giussani DA, Burton GJ (2013). Reduced cystathionine -lyase and increased miR-21 are associated with increased vascular resistance in growth-restricted pregnancies: hydrogen sulfide as a placental vasodilator. Am J Pathol;182(4):1448-58.
• Cindrova-Davies T, Yung H-W, Johns J, Spasic-Boskovic O, Korolchuk S, Jauniaux E, Burton GJ and Charnock-Jones DS (2007). Oxidative stress, gene expression and protein changes induced in the human placenta during labor. Am. J. Pathol.; 171: 1168-1179. 
• Prater M, Hamilton RS, Yung HW, Sharkey AM, Robson P, Jauniaux E, Charnock-Jones DS, Burton GJ, Cindrova-Davies T. (2021) RNA-Seq reveals changes in human placental metabolism, transport and endocrinology function in the first-second trimester transition.  Biology Open. 10(6), bio058222