Jennifer Herington, PhD

Jennifer Herington received her PhD in Molecular, Cellular, and Systemic Physiology at Southern Illinois University in 2009. Her background involves training in reproductive physiology focused on understanding the endometrial changes necessary for successful onset and maintenance of pregnancy, inflammation-driven dysfunctional endometrial phenotypes and perinatal development. Her expertise includes embryo implantation, as well as uterine myometrial and cervical physiology during pregnancy and labor. Her laboratory is focused on the discovery of novel regulators of uterine contractility with therapeutic applications for the prevention of preterm labor, labor induction and control of postpartum hemorrhage. Her research has led to the development of high-throughput assays for screening small-compound libraries, and in vivo tools for pre-clinical testing of promising therapeutic regulators of uterine contractility. She is the recipient of a Vanderbilt Faculty Research Scholar Award and is the principle investigator of grants funded by the National Institute of Health and AMAG Pharmaceuticals.