TALK: Defining the cell and molecular origins of the primate ovarian reserve

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• Dr. Sissy Wamaitha, HHMI Leading Edge Fellow and University of California
• Thursday 26 June 2025, 13:00-14:00
• Hodgkin-Huxley Seminar Room, PDN, Downing Site .

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Dr. Sissy Wamaitha HHMI Leading Edge Fellow and University of California Presidents Postdoctoral Fellowship, UCLA

Hodgkin Huxley Seminar Room. 1pm Thursday 26th June

The seminar will operate as a hybrid, please find the zoom link below: https://crick.zoom.us/j/9507984643?pwd=c3Q4WG1sTVRoOTRxa0JNZkp4cG9Tdz09   Meeting ID: 950 798 4643 Passcode: 39409

Abstract

The primate ovarian reserve is established during late foetal development and consists of quiescent primordial follicles in the ovarian cortex, each composed of granulosa cells surrounding an oocyte. Increasing knowledge of human ovary development and follicle formation has implications for understanding and treating infertility, variations in sex characteristics, germ cell tumour formation, and endocrine diseases. However, as late stages of foetal development are not routinely accessible for study with human tissue, we exploited the evolutionary proximity of the rhesus macaque to investigate primate follicle formation using single cell and spatial transcriptomics. Similarly to human prenatal ovaries, the rhesus also develops multiple types of pre-granulosa (PG) cells, with the majority of primordial follicles derived from PG2 with small variable contributions from PG1 . We also observe that activated medullary follicles recruit foetal theca cells to establish a two-cell system for sex-steroid hormone production prior to birth, providing a cell-based explanation for mini puberty.

Biography

Dr Sissy Wamaitha is a stem cell biologist whose research interests centre on mapping cell fates in early human development. She completed her PhD in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology with Dr Kathy Niakan at the Francis Crick Institute in London, studying signalling pathways in the early embryo and in pluripotent stem cells. Dr Wamaitha’s postdoctoral research in Dr Amander Clark’s lab at UCLA uses human and nonhuman primate models to investigate ovarian development during foetal life. Her work investigates the origins of ovarian somatic cells and how they support the nascent germline in early follicle formation, establishing foundational knowledge required to improve infertility-related stem cell-based therapies.

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