Creating a rationale for personalised spontaneous-preterm-birth risk management -an in vitro model of bacteria-hostinnateimmune interactions in the re

服务阴道环境(微生物群、先天免疫系统和代谢组)是健康妊娠的重要因素。1.早产的增加与常驻微生物群落的变化、免疫反应的改变和炎症有关。我们假设导致的炎症影响阴道上皮和宫颈的完整性，并增加上升感染的风险。在临床研究中，我们已经确定了在英国妇女中可以预测自然早产的代谢物和细菌的代谢物和细菌；我们正在一个单独的撒哈拉以南非洲组中验证这一点。这项研究的主要目标是为预防早产提供关于怀孕环境的洞察力和生物学样本。这项基于实验室的PhD将调查改变的阴道环境对上皮细胞功能和免疫反应的影响。

Thecervicovaginalenvironment (microbiome, innate immunesystem,andmetabolome)is an importantcontributor toahealthy pregnancy1.Risk of prematurebirthisassociated withchanges in resident microbial community,altered immune responsesand inflammation.Wehypothesisethat the resultantinflammationaffectsvaginal epitheliaand cervixintegrity and increases risk ofascending infection.In clinical studies, wehave identifiedapanel of metabolites and bacteria thatcan predictspontaneous preterm birth in UK women; wearevalidating this in a separatesub-Saharan Africa cohort.Thesestudiesgive insight intothepregnantcervicovaginalenvironmentas well as providingbiological samples for mechanistic studies.Aim of the investigation: This laboratory-based PhDwill investigate theimpactof an altered cervicovaginal environment on epithelial cell function and immune response in the presence and absence ofbacteria/bacterialproducts of metabolism.Theoverarching goal is to informthefutureuse oftargetedprobioticsand/orantibioticstrategiesto prevent preterm birth.