Mala Mahendroo

Mala Mahendroo is Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, TX. She received her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from UTSW. Her groups research program focuses on defining the molecular mechanisms by which the cervix provides a protective barrier during pregnancy and how it undergoes a remarkable remodeling process to prepare for on-time birth. Further, her group explores how these processes are misregulated and contribute to premature birth. Her lab utilizes numerous model systems and approaches that include mouse and organoid models, single cell genomics and cell biology techniques.

Her group has recently identified goblet cells as a primary epithelial subtype in the cervix during pregnancy and ongoing studies focus on the lineage of these specialized cells, their regulation by the hormones progesterone and estrogen and the impact of goblet cell dysfunction on ascending infection-mediated premature birth.