Shyamal K. Roy, PhD

Professor
Director of the Molecular Reproductive Endocrinology Laboratory

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Phone: 402-559-5445

Overview

Director: Shyamal K. Roy, PhD

The current global population is close to 7 billion with over 78 million babies born each year. With approximately 33 million deaths per year, the population growth is approximately 45 million per year.  The UN projects that the world population will reach just over 9.1 billion in 2050, challenging world resources.  On the other hand, approximately 11.8% of reproductive-age women in the U.S.A. are infertile for various reasons.  Infertility affects the psychological well-being of affected women and leads to social distress.  Therefore, fertility management is absolutely critical.  Because ovarian follicles, which are oocytes surrounded by cells called granulosa cells and the cal cells, are at the center of fertility, we seek to determine how follicle development occurs prior to ovulation in order to identify improved management, diagnosis and new therapies for human infertility, ovarian cancer, and contraception. The long-term goal of my research is to improve the reproductive health of women by revealing the molecular underpinning of steroid hormones and growth factor regulation of ovarian follicular development from the primordial to the ovulatory stage and through the maturation of granulosa cells.  My laboratory is focused on addressing how estrogen, the most important reproductive hormone in women, affects follicular development at two very critical steps in folliculogenesis.