David Abbott

ALIGNED RESEARCH FOCUS

Women’s reproductive health, including obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) within polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)

ORGAN SYSTEM/DISEASE FOCUS

Polycystic ovary syndrome

RESEARCH FOCUS

I have more than 35 years of experience employing animal models of female reproductive endocrinology to determine pathophysiological mechanisms underlying a variety of reproductive health disorders commonly found in women. More recently, in collaboration with Dr. Daniel Dumesic (UCLA, Obstetrics and Gynecology), my lab developed a comprehensive nonhuman primate model for polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) that was the vanguard for a multitude of animal and human studies aimed at determining developmental origins of this most common endocrinopathy in women. We have translated insight gained from the nonhuman primate model to discern pathophysiological mechanisms causing discrete aspects of reproductive and metabolic dysfunction in women with PCOS, including abnormalities at the molecular level. Our work identifies metabolic dysfunction as possibly the initial abnormality in early developmental origins of PCOS.