Jurgen Pollheimer

After an Msc degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Vienna, I obtained a PhD in 2006 under the mentorship of Professor Martin Knöfler. My doctoral thesis was on regulatory mechanisms controlling extravillous trophoblast differentiation. From 2006 until 2009, I underwent a postdoctoral training at the University of Oslo (Dept. of Pathology) and received a Postdoc fellowship from the Norwegian Cancer Society on the project: High endothelial venule-like differentiation of endothelial cells. In 2009, I re-joined the research group of Martin Knöfler as a Senior Postdoc. In 2011 I was appointed Research Associate to establish independence and begin my own program of research in reproductive biology. After receiving an Associate Professor position in April 2015 I currently serve as an independent research group leader for the Reproductive Biology Unit at the Medical University of Vienna. My research interests lie in the principles of extravillous trophoblast (EVT) differentiation and function. In addition, my group focusses on immunological aspects during pregnancy. We currently have four main areas of research: ‐ Polyploidization and gene copy number variations in EVTs of normal and complete mole placentas; ‐ assessment of senescent features in trophoblast subtypes; ‐ characterization of tissue‐specific macrophage signatures in the placenta and decidua; ‐ and vascular alterations and immune cell distribution in decidua basalis and prospectively collected endometrial tissues of women suffering from idiopathic, recurrent abortions. Moreover, we are currently interested to define whether transcriptional and phenotypical variations within invasive EVTs are due to environmental changes controlled by maternal decidual cells or whether EVTs subdivide into different subpopulations. To this end, we aim to perform single‐cell RNA‐seq of various trophoblasts populations isolated from individual patients. Finally, I am interested to determine placenta‐specific; EVT‐enriched secreted factors with the potential to serve as prognostic marker signatures to predict placental pathologies during early pregnancy.