Our research topic is the endometrium, its physiology and pathological conditions like endometriosis and endometrial cancer. During 2006, Prof. P. van Trappen joined the research group and he introduced new areas of investigation.

In the past period, research has focused on the following topics:
- Biology of progesterone receptor (PR) polymorphism. The functional characterization of the PROGINS variant of the PR has been accomplished.
- Genetic of endometriosis: we have shown that certain polymorphisms in the PR modify the risk for endometriosis.
- Physiology of the endometrium: expression of steroid metabolizing enzymes in the normal endometrium and in endometriosis.
- Regulation of proliferation in the endometrium: action of estrogen receptor (ER) and co-factors in inducing or repressing gene transcription.
- Regulation of proliferation by ER and co-factors in simple cell line models of endometrial and breast origin.
- Estrogen metabolism: a sensitive HPLC method to assess and quantify the enzymatic conversions between different estrogens and between androgens and estrogens.
- Genetic of familial breast and ovarian cancer: we have shown that some PR polymorphisms modify the risk for breast and ovarian cancer conferred by the presence of sequence variants in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes.

Furthermore we have started new research lines:
- Epigenetic regulation of genes that might be involved in the establishment of endometriosis.
- Functional characterization of the GW112 gene product, which is highly induced in the endometrium by estradiol during the proliferative phase.
- The molecular and cellular processes leading to multi drug resistance in ovarian and endometrial cancer.
- Study the aberrations in the regulation of angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis typically observed in cancer microenvironment and in other benign disturbances like endometriosis.

Research group
Dr. P. Groothuis, projectleader
Dr. G. Dunselman
Prof.Dr. P. van Trappen
Prof.Dr. J. Evers
Dr. A. de Goeij 

Post-doctoral fellows
Dr. A. Romano 

PhD students
Drs. K. van Kaam
Drs. H. Dassen 

Technicians
B. Delvoux 

Students
S. Kuenen
C. Jaemers
A. Luyten
A. Maes