Transgender Medicine Project
The project is investigating the effects of androgen hormone therapy (testosterone HRT) using a mouse model. This project is specifically looking into the mysterious growth of the Skene's Gland/Female Prostate upon application of exogenous testosterone in female mice. Testosterone may trigger developmental mechanisms that contribute to hypertrophy of these glands. The organ itself is very poorly understood, and its growth may interfere with pap smear results.
I will be procuring more information on its composition, and comparing its composition post-testosterone treatment to placebo female mice as well as male mouse prostate.
Little is known about the long term effects of gender affirming hormones, and the field of trans and intersex health research is massively underserved.
More Information
Department affiliation: UF Department of Microbiology and Genetics
PI: Dr. Marty Cohn
Graduate Student: Jacky Sanson
Involvement: Jan 2023-Present
Responsibilities: Mouse work, histology, conducting testing protocols, recording data.
Prostatic Growths in Transmasculine People
This is a recently documented phenomenon in Dasaraju et al., speaking about prostatic growths from human vaginectomy samples from transgender patients. This is also something that occurs in rodents upon the application of exogenous testosterone, but little is known about why or how it occurs. We aim to complete a more in-depth analysis of this phenomenon.