Progress on Glycomendo (Non-invasive clinical markers for diagnosis of endometriosis) project

Progress on Glycomendo (Non-invasive clinical markers for diagnosis of endometriosis) project funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and Innovation programme under grant agreement No 843862, H2020-MSCA-IF-2018. 

Endometriosis not only causes severe pelvic pain and occasionally infertility to the affected women, but also brings a tremendous medical and economic expense to the society. There is a long period between the onset and diagnosis of the disease, mainly due to its non-specific symptoms and the lack of a non-invasive test. Endometriosis can be diagnosed invasively by the gold standard laparoscopy. Zsuzsanna and her supervisor, Dr Radka Fahey aim to identify tractable, non-invasive clinical biomarkers for the detection of endometriosis using our interdisciplinary expertise in glycobiology, gynaecology and microbiology. It is important to recognize the disease early and reduce associated health costs.  

More than 40 patients joined to the study and provided blood, urine and high vaginal swab samples from the start of GLYCOMENDO project. Dr Zsuzsanna Kovacs has begun to identify the N-glycome of control urine samples. Diagnosis from urine is a non-invasive approach compared to laparoscopy and can help for the early phase diagnosis of endometriosis in the future. 

Patients are recruited on an ongoing basis at Merrion Fertility Clinic and our clinician collaborators present our research project to their patients, who can join to this research. Follow Dr Kovacs on twitter (https://twitter.com/ZsuzsannaMs) where progress of the research will be shared, including results, scientific data or plans related to this project.  Dr Kovács will attend the Endometriosis Associaiton of Ireland Annual General Meeting on the 1st of February 2020, where she will meet experts alike and patients to disseminate the aims and progress on the GLYCOMENDO project.