DrPei Lai

The primary interest of my postdoctoral research is to determine what initiates spontaneous contractions in the myometrium (i.e. the smooth muscle of the uterus) at the end of pregnancy to begin the process of human labour, both for the completion of healthy term pregnancies and in the context of pathological preterm birth. I utilise both transcriptomics (RNA-seq, spatial) and function-based (organ bath) experiments, alongside classic molecular biology approaches, to characterise the mechanisms that are likely to control the onset of myometrial contractions.

I have previously been funded by Action Medical Research for projects that focused on the role of the cyclic AMP (cAMP) signalling pathway (specifically protein kinase A and phosphodiesterase function) in regulating myometrial contractions at tissue level. I am currently funded by Borne to undertake transcriptomics analyses of uterine tissues (myometrium, decidua, fetal membranes and placenta) for the Borne Uterine Mapping Project (BUMP).