2024-2025 SRI International Training Grant Recipients
Meet the five recipients of the 2024-2025 SRI International Training Grant!
Magdalena Martínez-García: Postdoctoral Researcher at Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Gregorio Marañon (IISGM), Spain
"Human pregnancy is a period of remarkable neuroplasticity, with immune adaptations being potential important contributors. Dr. Magdalena Martínez-García, a renowned researcher in the neuroscience of human pregnancy at Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Hospital Gregorio Marañón, Madrid, plans to do a training with Prof. Ina Stelzer, a pregnancy immunology specialist at UCSD. During her stay, Magdalena will broaden her knowledge of pregnancy immunology and the neuroimmune axis and will acquire skills in mass cytometry to analyze the maternal immunome from blood samples. Together, they will investigate the link between maternal immune and neural dynamics during human pregnancy."
Siddharth Acharya: PhD Student at The University of Newcastle, Australia
"Thank you to SRI for this incredible training opportunity, which will enable me to study the role of mitochondria in early placental development. I am excited to use this grant to travel to the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and undergo training in the development of a 3D ex vivo placental model from A/Prof. Jo James and the Pregnancy Modelling Group."
Pinar Calis: Maternal-Fetal Specialist at Gazi University Faculty of Medicine, Turkey
"This will be a great opportunity for me to do this project at the University of Washington in Seattle, one of the leading institutions in this field. I will be able to bring back my findings to my laboratory in Turkey, where I can establish new research studies on detecting placental health from blood samples. This travel grant would enable me to learn methods to do these sorts of studies, and to cement a collaborative relationship with the Vojtech laboratory."
Rosalieke E. Wiegel, PhD, MSc: Clinical Epidemiologist at the Erasmus Medical Centre, The Netherlands
"With the SRI International Training Grant I seek to learn in Dr. Moore’s Denver-based laboratory how to measure first-trimester uterine artery volumetric flow. Additionally, I will acquire preliminary data regarding mechanisms by which pre- and peri-conceptional ovarian-derived vasoactive hormones influence early uterine vascular remodeling. Understanding hormonal impacts on maternal vasculature is increasingly recognized, as it's not only the "seed" (trophoblast) but also the "soil" that predisposes women to pregnancy complications."
Alison Maclean, MBChB MRes MRCOG| MRC: Clinical Research Training Fellow at the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
"This travel grant will provide me with the opportunity to visit Professor Linda Griffiths lab in MIT, where I will learn to work with their advanced synthetic hydrogel, and integrate this into my 3D multi-cellular in-vitro model of adenomyosis. This will increase the translatability and recapitulation of adenomyosis, and contribute towards its future use as a model for studying adenomyosis."
Congratulations to all of our grant recipients!