Uterine Biology Lab · University of Missouri

Endometrial development and regeneration

Our mission is to improve women's reproductive health by understanding how the endometrium develops and regenerates. We study uterine glands, epithelial plasticity and epithelial–stromal communication to diagnose, treat and prevent infertility and endometrial disease.

Explore our research Join the lab

Background: lineage-labeled mouse endometrial epithelial organoids.

Research

Four questions drive the lab

Neonatal mouse uterus: CDH1-positive epithelium with budding glands

Uterine epithelial organoid: a single polarized layer of epithelial cells

01 Gland development How the neonatal uterus specifies glandular epithelium, and the transient plasticity window that makes it possible. FOXA2, ESR1 and retinoic acid signaling set the timing.

Adult uterine cross-section with lineage-traced glands (green) in stroma (magenta)

02 Regeneration & plasticity How the adult endometrium rebuilds its epithelium. Luminal cells can convert into glands, and transplanted organoids can rebuild the uterine lining and restore fertility.

Mouse endometrial assembloid: organoid epithelium (green) wrapping a stromal core (red)

03 Epithelial–stromal crosstalk How glands talk to stroma to establish pregnancy: progesterone receptor in glands, LIF, implantation and decidualization, modeled in organoids and assembloids.

Human endometrial cancer with KRT5-positive cells (red)

04 Endometrial disease What goes wrong in endometriosis and endometrial cancer, and how developmental programs reveal early warning signs and new therapeutic targets.

Approach

From mouse genetics to human organoids

We pair genetic models we built, including Prss29-Cre and Cxcl15-Cre for uterine glands, with organoid transplantation, assembloids and single-cell and spatial atlases across mouse, human and other species.

Mouse genetics & Cre models

Organoids & assembloids

Single-cell & spatial transcriptomics

Confocal image of an endometrial organoid: epithelium (green) and nuclei

Recent work

Selected publications

All publications →

Single-cell UMAP of mouse uterine cell types beside a PND15 uterus stained for ESR1 (red) and CDH1 (green)

bioRxiv · 2026 A transient epithelial plasticity state defines the developmental window for uterine gland specification

Time course of gland regeneration after ablation: CDH1 (cyan) and FOXA2 (yellow) before ablation and at days 3, 6 and 10

bioRxiv · 2026 Organoid transplantation in the adult endometrium restores fertility and uncovers epithelial lineage plasticity

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · 2025 Uterine organoids reveal insights into epithelial specification and plasticity in development and disease

News

Lab news

Aug 2026. Preprint: organoid transplantation restores fertility after epithelial ablation and reveals luminal-to-glandular lineage plasticity. Led by Dhanvika Mopure, with the McKinley Lab (Harvard). Read more

Aug 2026. Preprint with the Winuthayanon Lab: a method for building mouse and human oviduct assembloids and co-culturing them with embryos. Read more

Jun 2026. Preprint: a transient epithelial plasticity state defines the window for uterine gland specification. Led by Jason Rizo, with the Vento-Tormo Lab (Wellcome Sanger). Read more

2026. Vakil Ahmad and colleagues publish a protocol for mouse and human endometrial assembloids in Biology of Reproduction. Read more

Apr 2025. Our PNAS paper on uterine organoids and epithelial plasticity is featured by MU School of Medicine. Read more

Sep 2023. Dr. Kelleher receives a $2.17M NICHD award to study uterine epithelial regeneration. Read more

Supported by

NIH · NICHDEunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Paula & Rodger Riney Foundation

University of MissouriNextGen Precision Health

We're looking for curious scientists.

Postdocs, graduate students and undergraduates interested in reproductive biology, regeneration and genomics.

Open positions