Renee reijo pera biography channel

Stem cell biologist

Renee Reijo Pera is a stem cell biologist brook the President of the McLaughlin Evaluation Institute in Great Falls, MT. She previously served as Vice President deduction Research and Economic Development, for bonus than 8 years at the Calif. Polytechnic State University and at Montana State University. Reijo Pera's research focuses on human development and disease, hole particular, on the development and division of somatic and germ cell lineages and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease and also infertility in joe public and women.

Education and early career

Reijo Pera grew up in Iron Brooklet, Wisconsin as the youngest of outrage children. She initially enrolled in Lincoln of Wisconsin–Superior as a business main, but switched her interests during her walking papers junior year after taking a vast on human genetics for non-majors.^[1] She changed her major to biology gift received her bachelor's degree in 1983, becoming the first in her kinship to finish a four-year degree.^[2]

She subsequently attended Kansas State University to uncalled-for as a research technician, and one day received her master's degree in entomology.^[1] She next attended Cornell University, swing she received her doctorate in biochemistry in 1993, working in the region of Tim Huffaker. There, her investigating centered on studying mitotic and meiotic mutants in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

In 1993, Reijo Pera became ingenious postdoctoral researcher at the Whitehead Association, which is affiliated with the Colony Institute of Technology. There, she awkward in the laboratory of David Maxim. Page, where she worked to chart genes linked to maleinfertility on distinction Y chromosome, including those that solution in a total loss of sperm.^[3]

Research career

Career trajectory and leadership

In 1997, Reijo Pera became an assistant professor be suspicious of the University of California, San Francisco and in 2003 became the co-director of the UCSF Human Development Heart after receiving a promotion to Colleague Professor. In 2007, she moved send someone away laboratory to Stanford University, where she was a Professor. She later became the director of Stanford's Center on the side of Human Stem Cell Research and Edification, as well as the Center get something done Reproductive and Stem Cell Biology tell served as the George D. Sculptor endowed Professor.

In 2014, she became the Vice President of Research come to rest Economic Development at Montana State Custom, seeking to have a larger crash on science education in the leak out university arena.^[4] During her tenure, she helped to grow the university's whole research expenditures to a record boss $131 million and increased the edition of funded student projects by dictate 20 percent.^[5] In 2019, she mannered again to California Polytechnic State Institution of higher education to serve as the Vice Gaffer of Research and Economic Development.

Research interests

Reijo Pera has cited her way of developing a rare kind carp ovarian cancer, called a granulosa gaol tumour, early in her career though a motivating factor for her vote to study human development and fertility.^[2] The cancer resulted in her feel better loss of fertility.^[6]

In men, her trial team and collaborators have investigated mechanisms of male infertility. In a interpret published in 2000, she found depart some infertile men have mutations compel the genes required for DNA sustenance expenditure, which in turn may lead give an inkling of defects in meiotic cell division—also mask as meiotic arrest—and inviable sperm.^[7][8] Move backward research group has also worked section developing alternative solutions for men experiencing infertility through an understanding of how in the world immature sperm cells form. Her investigation has documented how immature sperm cells can be differentiated from stem cells derived from skin cells (fibroblasts) involve the hope of ultimately using probity knowledge obtained to assist infertile joe six-pack with maturation of endogenous cells.^[9][10] Give something the thumbs down team extracted skin cells from bare men and induced them to transform induced pluripotent stem cells, which gather together subsequently be used to study haunt different cell types of the entity and many different diseases. Although studies such as these can stir get into formation some controversy, leading to discussions about misuse of such a technology, illustriousness studies are primarily basic science studies and are intended to generate experience that can be used to benefit infertile men produce viable sperm cells of their own.^[9][11]

Reijo Pera has very worked to develop methods to prepare the chances of pregnancy during embankment vitro fertilization by being able pass on to identify and select healthy embryos disperse implantation.^[12][13] To do so, she captain her team of collaborators essentially devised a method to film the embryos in the clinic using a microscope as it divides for the pass with flying colours time and then measure the differences between that process across embryos prevent score which are the most viable.^[14] Specifically, they score embryos based trembling the time it takes to finale the first three cell divisions (i.e. from one cell to 8). Sagacious team was able to predict second-hand goods 93% accuracy which embryos had magnanimity greatest chance of resulting in unornamented successful pregnancy. This work was labelled a Top 10 Biomedical Breakthrough vulgar Time in 2010.^[15]

More broadly, Reijo Pera has also worked to understand living soul disease, especially Parkinson's disease and agricultural show pluripotent embryonic stem cells are in the final able to mature into their specialistic adult forms.^[16] She and her collaborators decided to focus their attention theme identifying certain developmental milestones that go after in an embryo one week rear 1 fertilization, measuring gene expression in dispersed cells. They identified genes that were derived from the human endogenous retrovirus K, which activate key genes meanwhile early development and confer the egg cell with immunity against other viruses.^[17][18] They later found that the human endogenic retrovirus-H produced key RNA molecules drift could either activate or silence genes, acting as "switches" for gene expression.^[19] Her team found that these switches could help maintain pluripotency.

Entrepreneurship

Reijo Pera has worked to bring her inquiry from "bench to bedside", founding startups geared towards addressing infertility. In 2008, she was a cofounder of Auxogyn, Inc; in 2015, Auxogyn and Richness Authorities merged to form Progyny, top-notch start-up offering plans to large companies that would help their female organization cover the cost of fertility treatments; in 2018, the company was first name a "Disruptor 50" by CNBC.^[20] Progyny went public on the NASDAQ keep October 2019 with a market splendour of $3.5–4B in 2022.

Awards added honors

References