MWRI Erie Campus

Orwig, Kyle – orwigke@upmc.edu
Reproductive biology, fertility, infertility. Focuses on stem cells, germ lineage development, fertility, and infertility. Provides state-of-the-art services for generating transgenic mice/rats and knockout mice. The facility also produces replication-defective lentiviral vectors for delivering recombinant transgenes and performs teratoma and chimera analyses to evaluate stem cell developmental potential.

Ouyang, Yingshi – ouyangy@mwri.magee.edu
The human placenta and extracellular vesicles. Centers on the biology of the human placenta. In addition to hormones, growth factors, and other signaling proteins, the syncytiotrophoblast releases a repertoire of lipid-encapsulated extracellular vesicles (EVs) into the maternal blood, including apoptotic cell-derived EVs, microvesicles, and nano-sized exosomes. Recently uncovered that trophoblastic exosomes exhibit the strongest antiviral activity among the EVs. Pursuing the trafficking and functions of trophoblastic exosomes.

Patel, Sravan Kumar – patels10@mwri.magee.edu
Drug product development for women health issues such as HIV Prevention, Contraception, and Endometriosis. Interested in pursuing immune environment in the disease milieu either by directly targeting a specific immune cell type or by modulating other factors such as microbiome, which have a significant role in the etiology or progression of diseases such as recurrent endometriosis and infectious diseases. Involved with the development of novel drug products against HIV, herpes, and unintended pregnancy, as well as developing in vitro tools and models to assess product quality.

Peters, David – dpeters@mwri.magee.edu
Genomics/Diagnostics. Focused on understanding the biology and utility of cell-free nucleic acids in human fluid reservoirs such as plasma, stool, and cerebrospinal fluid. This work is motivated by the need to develop methods for the non-invasive detection and phenotyping of silently progressing human disease. To achieve these goals, the lab combines high-throughput methods in translational genomics with novel computational approaches.

Powers, Robert – rpowers@mwri.magee.edu
Preeclampsia. Interested in understanding how obesity increases the risk of preeclampsia. Thinks that a novel cardiovascular disease risk factor, asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), may be an important link by which obesity increases the risk of preeclampsia and cardiovascular disease in later life.

Roberts, James – jroberts@mwri.magee.edu
Global Health and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Research is interdisciplinary and involves fundamental, clinical, behavioral, and epidemiological studies. Has been involved in several seminal studies of preeclampsia, including the recognition of preeclampsia as involving endothelial dysfunction and being more than hypertension in pregnancy. Currently, he is involved in global health research.

Sadovsky, Yoel  – ysadovsky@mwri.magee.edu
Biology of pregnancy. The lab utilizes molecular and cellular approaches to decipher mechanisms underlying placental development, differentiation of placental (trophoblast) cells, and their response to injury. Focus on three major areas: 1. Placental non-coding RNAs 2. Extracellular Vesicles at the maternal-placental-fetal interface 3. Placental lipidomics

Sheng, Yi – shengy@upmc.edu
Stem Cells. Gene Editin. Transgenic. Neural nets, biology computing, data privacy, data structures, deep learning (artificial intelligence), medical diagnostic computing, optimisation, power-aware computing

Simerly, Calvin – csimerly@mwri.magee.edu
Cell biological basis of motility and meiotic/mitotic mechanisms during fertilization, development, and reprogramming, especially as it relates to the role of the centrosome, the cell’s major microtubule organizing center.

Walker, William – walkerwh@mwri.magee.edu
Endocrine control of male spermatogenesis and reproduction. Define how hormonal and environmental signals are transduced into the signals that maintain spermatogenesis and male fertility. The regulation of spermatogenesis by the Sertoli cell in the mammalian testis and the maintenance of spermatogonial stem cells.

Yanowitz, Judith – yanowitzjl@mwri.magee.edu
Genetics, infertility, and Oocyte development. Elucidate the mechanisms that underlie human reproductive aging. Chromatin and Recombination. Meiotic Crossover Checkpoints. Double-strand break repair and fertility. Germ cell fate specification.

Yatsenko, Alexander – yatsenkosa@upmc.edu
Utilizes molecular DNA, RNA, and novel genomic high-throughput approaches to decipher genetic defects underlying male infertility. The goal is to improve genetic diagnosis for infertile men by applying new procedures and scientific findings into clinical practice. Using cytogenetic, DNA and RNA sequencing, array comparative genomic hybridization (CGH), and next-generation sequencing to examine male infertility.

Zeleznik, Anthony – zeleznikaj@mwri.magee.edu
Serving as a mentor for junior faculty members and research and clinical fellows currently in training. Research area has been to understand the physiology and cell biology of ovarian cyclicity (follicular development and selection, luteinization, and luteolysis) during the primate menstrual cycle.

Zyczynski, Halina – zyczhm@mwri.magee.edu
Clinical Trials of Therapies for Pelvic Floor Disorders; efficacy of diagnostic testing. Research interests are clinical with a focus on short and long-term anatomic and functional outcomes of treatments for urinary and fecal incontinence and prolapse and related cost-effective diagnostic testing.