Endometriosis: "The subject of reproduction is simply neglected in the course"

Ms. Moyer, you won the German Science Slam Championship - with a topic that otherwise receives little attention.

It affects many women: endometriosis, a painful disease of the uterine lining.

Natalia Wenzel Warkentin

Editor on duty at FAZ.NET.

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I couldn't believe it myself.

At first I wasn't very well received, which is naturally due to my topic.

When you come into the room and start talking about the cycle and menstruation, it's quiet at first.

Because these topics are still very shameful.

But after each of my performances, there was a lot of interest and people gave me great feedback.

Incidentally, there were also men there, fathers for example, who wanted to find out more about endometriosis.

You are a biologist and are doing your doctorate at the University Hospital in Essen.

Why did you make endometriosis the subject of your doctoral thesis?

I stumbled into it like that.

Originally, I wanted to do cancer research, but then I realized that a lot of people do that.

Then I looked around and actually found the reproduction area much more exciting.

Especially since we only touched on it in biology studies.

Here's a brief excursion into the menstrual cycle, there's a bit of sperm formation, then the development of the child.

That simply falls short.

The fact that this position was advertised in Essen was pure coincidence, which I'm very happy about.

That doesn't sound like there's much research on the subject and female reproduction in general.

That's true, unfortunately.

Thanks to Corona, I was able to take part in many congresses regardless of location, and you always come across the same names there.

Both nationally and internationally.

The number of people who deal with it is really manageable.

In your post, you compare the endometriosis lesions to Death Eaters, the evil followers of Lord Voldemort in JK Rowling's Harry Potter universe, for the sake of clarity.

Using this analogy, how do you, as magic student Harry, try to deal with the disease?

When I talk about endometriosis, many people have little idea what it means. To visualize the whole thing, as a Potterhead, I chose the Harry Potter scenery. Endometriosis foci, which arise from shed lining of the uterus, settle outside the uterus and cause problems there: cysts, bleeding or pain, for example. And similar to the Death Eaters, this is done in secret. Some only find out about these endometriosis foci when they want to have children or after giving birth. I am now trying to start the process of decidualization. Decidualization is part of the secretory phase of the menstrual cycle, a natural signal, a change in cells so that cells cannot proliferate, continue to grow, and attach themselves outside the uterus.

So this cell proliferation is different in people with endometriosis than in healthy women?

This is one of the theories. The extent to which they react differently is always very different, which in turn fits in with the enormous variety of symptoms of this disease, but there are indications that there are problems with endometriosis sufferers. Cell proliferation and subsequent change is fundamental to forming the “cushion” in which an embryo can nest. We are currently doing basic research and are working together with a fertility practice, from which we obtain the test tissue. With the consent of the patient, of course. This tissue accumulates during routine examinations and is then no longer needed. For me this is valuable material. We'll pick that up too (laughs). So I built up a small cell bank bit by bit.

So far you've only worked with human material and not on people themselves?

Exactly, I worked with primary cells in in vitro cell culture experiments for most of the time, as well as with the original tissue in in vivo endometriosis mouse model for the last third of my PhD.

In the in vivo experiments, I transplanted the original tissue into a mouse and saw how it behaved.

This is of course not without controversy, but unfortunately we still have to resort to such methods at the moment.

It is important to deal with it responsibly.

I have my results now and am in the process of putting the pieces of the puzzle together and writing it all down to publish the work this year.

So far there is no cure for endometriosis. Can those affected hope to receive adequate therapy in a few years – perhaps based on your research?

That is difficult to say.

Research - and I had to learn this myself - can be incredibly frustrating because you always get to the point where you just can't go on.

But you have to keep at it and keep going.

Of course I hope that with my research results I can contribute to making this disease a thing of the past.

But it's a multifactorial disease, which means there are many other areas of research at play.

But the mere fact that it is receiving more and more attention and that more and more research is being done on it in science is an important step in the right direction.