Lisa Vrooman is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Reproductive and Developmental Sciences at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC).

Over 8 million babies have been born using Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), and use will continue to increase as access becomes more available and technology/protocols improve the probability of a live birth. In the United States, approximately 2% of live births are conceived using ART. ART pregnancies are associated with increased risk for low birth weight, abnormal placentation, congenital defects, preterm delivery, preeclampsia, and other pregnancy complications. ART-conceived people are also a relatively young population—there is limited existing data examining how ART impacts health at middle or old age. Aligned with this clinically-relevant gap in knowledge, the Vrooman lab focuses on understanding and improving the molecular, cellular, and long-term health outcomes of current and future ART procedures. A priority research question is determining how exposures during critical windows of development, like ART, can contribute to pregnancy/neonatal complications, and even lead to pathological states later in adulthood. The Vrooman lab leverages the power of the mouse and non-human primate models to conduct translational research with the goal of optimizing protocols and testing interventions to improve maternal and fetal outcomes.

Dr. Vrooman's research training in reproductive biology began as an undergraduate at California State University Long Beach with Dr. Kelly Young. She then obtained her PhD in Genetics & Cell Biology with Dr. Patricia Hunt at Washington State University. Her dissertation work demonstrated how both paternal age and exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals could influence spermatogenesis, potentially affecting sperm count and paternal inheritance in offspring using a mouse model. After receiving her PhD, she conducted postdoctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania with Dr. Marisa Bartolomei. Her project focused on determining how epigenetic changes incurred during ART impact placentation and fetal growth. She demonstrated that embryo culture leads to placental overgrowth and an increase in the preeclampsia risk factor, sFlt1, in a mouse model. These placental phenotypes were associated with both a global loss of placental DNA methylation and a local loss at imprinted genes, which are known to be important for development and notably, normally protected from methylation loss. That work was funded in part by the National Centers for Translational Research in Reproduction and Infertility (NCTRI) grant, The Lalor Foundation, and a Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Individual National Research Service Award.