Margarita

Vigodner

For the past 20 years, beginning as a doctoral candidate and continuing thereafter, I have been working in the field of spermatogenesis, male fertility, and reproduction health. During this period, I took a critical and leading part in numerous projects focusing on different aspects of germ cell biology including the development of new methodologies for monitoring germ cell progression, methods that distinguish between normal and abnormal spermatogenesis, characterizing of the role of Small Ubiquitin-like Modifiers (SUMO) proteins in germ cells, studies of reproductive toxicology, and others. Over the last years, I have established myself as an independent researcher and have published multiple papers as a Principal Investigator. I have extensive experience in studies of protein posttranslational modifications and characterization of spermatogenesis as evident from my published works.

My research involves training of undergraduate students who \ work in my laboratory during an academic year and in the summer and learn different methods of cell and reproduction biology, including analysis of spermatogenesis, genotyping, cell separation, western blot, immunofluorescence, immunohistochemistry, and bioinformatics analyses. More than 70 undergraduate and 15 honor students have been trained in my laboratory over the last 15 years, with many now continuing their education at graduate schools. Currently, 22 undergraduates and 4 postdoctoral fellows who worked in my laboratory are co-authors in studies that are published in professional journals, and some students appear on more than one publication. The published research has been supported by Academic Research Enhancement Awards from NICHD.