2022

What a way to finish 2022 Our paper on rat placenta slices as a model to study sex-dependent inflammatory response got published on Dec 20  Read more here: Precision-cut rat placental slices as a model to study sex-dependent inflammatory response to LPS and Poly I:C

On 16^th November 2022, students and scientists gathered at Josef Hlávka's castle in Lužany near Přeštice to celebrate the winners of this year's Josef Hlávka awards. The award ceremony was attended by the members of the Board of Directors of the "Josef, Marie and Zdeňka Hlávka Foundation", representatives of universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The event included a concert in the castle chapel and a tour of the Lužany castle.

The Josef Hlávka Award is intended for talented students in bachelor, master, or doctoral studies who have demonstrated exceptional skills and creative thinking in their field and for talented young researchers of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic under 33 years of age. Among the eleven awarded students from Charles University was also a representative of our team, PharmDr. Rona Karahoda, Ph.D., who was awarded for her exceptional results during her postgraduate studies.

Our team attended the EPG-IFPA meeting in Jouy en Josas, France . Rona presented her newly funded project on NLRP3 inflammasome in gestational diabetes. On the other hand, Hanca presented her data on the effect of cholesterol on AMPK protein expression and activation in human MSPH placenta, BeWo, and PHT cells. These data she collected during her internship at the lab of Dr. Andrea Leiva in Chile .

Placenta Team (represented by Frantisek, Cilia, Rona, Hanca and Verca) attended the DOHaD 2022 Conference in Vancouver, Canada . Our team was represented by a total of 5 posters, including the topics: i) effect of inflammation on placental endocrine functions; ii) how paroxetine treatment affects placental monoamine homeostasis; iii) placental serotonin clearance system to prevent its vascular effects in the umbilical circulation; iv) placental tryptophan pathway in preterm birth; and v) cellular models to study monoamine transport in the placenta.

We are happy to share with you our latest publication, where we explored the cellular handling and regulation of monoamine transporters during the phenotypic transitioning of cytotrophoblasts along the villous pathway. For this, we used multiple techniques and two complementary placental in vitro models: the primary trophoblast cells isolated from the human term placenta and the choriocarcinoma-derived cell line BeWo. Find out more here: Functional reorganization of monoamine transport systems during villous trophoblast differentiation: evidence of distinct differences between primary human trophoblasts and BeWo cells

Take a look at our recently published paper in Scientific Reports where we show that the placenta provides an efficient clearance system for dopamine and norepinephrine from both maternal and fetal circulations. Read more here:  Functional characterization of dopamine and norepinephrine transport across the apical and basal plasma membranes of the human placental syncytiotrophoblast

Our one and only Hanča Horáčková is on fire 👍During the 70th Czech-Slovak Pharmacological Days in Bratislava (22 - 24 June 2022), she received the award of the Czech Society for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology for her publication in the field of toxicology (Effect of Selected Antidepressants on Placental Homeostasis of Serotonin: Maternal and Fetal Perspectives).  At the same time, her second (fist-author) paper on dopamine and norepinephrine homeostasis in the placenta got published in Scientific Reports.

Our team attended the European Placenta Perfusion Workshop in Jena! Cilia and Rona presented our team by showing their latest results in placental tryptophan metabolism in preterm birth and prenatal inflammation. 

We are thrilled to share that our team (led by Prof. Frantisek Staud) is a part of the National Institute for Neurological Research, one of the 5 special-purpose projects supported in the Programme for the Support of Excellent Research in Priority Areas of Public Interest in the Health Sector - EXCELES. The EXCELES program aims to increase the ability of research capacities in selected priority areas of research, development, and innovation. Our institute will be focused on neurosciences and the study of neurodegenerative and other types of neurological diseases. More info here: www.msmt.cz/research-and-development-1

Our wonderful and energetic diploma student Anna Orbisová presented her work on “Effect of inflammation on serotonin pathway in the placenta” at the Student Science Conference held at the Univerzita Karlova, Farmaceutická fakulta v Hradci Králové. Her presentation received great feedback and Anna was awarded 3rd place in the Biological Section of the conference. 👏

We are happy to announce that The Czech Health Research Council (Agentura pro zdravotnický výzkum České republiky) has decided to support our research proposal named “Placental NLRP3 inflammasome signaling in gestational diabetes and the therapeutic potential of metformin”. So, we are starting to believe in Santa after all 😉 

Pleased to share our next paper on the regulation of placental transporters in response to trophoblast differentiation in vitro. This is another result of the wonderful collaboration with Christiane Albrecht's lab at the University of Bern in Switzerland. If you are interested in the topic, please check out the link below: Trophoblast Differentiation Affects Crucial Nutritive Functions of Placental Membrane Transporters

Happy faces after successful presentations! 🥳🍾 Yesterday our team attended the 12th Postgraduate and Postdoc Conference organized by the Univerzita Karlova, Farmaceutická fakulta v Hradci Králové where 6 of us presented our data (5 in person and 1 online). We recieved great feedback from the audience and engaged in a very fruitful discussion section after the presentations! Afterwards, we practiced our modeling skills in a photoshoot session 😆