Diana Tordoff
Stanford University, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
The vagina hosts a community of microbes called the vaginal microbiome. Around and after menopause, many women develop vaginal dysbiosis: a community no longer dominated by Lactobacillus bacteria and containing a greater variety of microbes.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
vaginal microbiome
vaginal microbiota
vaginal dysbiosis
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2029
What they work on
- Recruit a longitudinal cohort of peri-menopausal, early post-menopausal and late post-menopausal women and characterize how vaginal microbiota composition and taxonomic richness change after they start menopause treatments.
- Characterize longitudinal changes in the vaginal microbiome after women stop menopause treatments, using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing (V3-V4 region) of self-collected vaginal swabs.
- Test whether the stage of the menopause transition shapes how strongly starting or stopping menopause treatments alters the vaginal microbiome, including shifts away from Lactobacillus-dominated communities.
More about the research
Many women use treatments to manage menopause symptoms. However, little is known about how starting or stopping these treatments changes the vaginal microbiome, which leaves clinicians and patients without clear evidence when making treatment decisions.
Why it matters
Clinicians and patients choosing menopause treatments have little information about how those treatments affect vaginal health. Showing how starting or stopping treatment shifts the vaginal microbiome at different menopause stages could help peri- and post-menopausal women and their clinicians make better-informed decisions about managing menopause symptoms.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Victoria Handa
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Medicine & Clinical Research
Measure how vaginal estrogen therapy changes the vaginal and urinary microbiota, especially specific Lactobacillus species such as L. crispatus, in postmenopausal women with recurrent UTI, using 16S rRNA gene sequencing before and after treatment.
Corrie Miller
University of Hawaii at Manoa, HI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether women who deliver preterm have more Lactobacillus iners or anaerobic bacteria in mid-pregnancy vaginal swabs, using 16S sequencing to identify bacteria and to assign community state types (common bacterial patterns).
Nikaela Flournoy
Miles College, AL·Earth & Environmental Science
Identify the sources of fecal pollution entering surface waters of a coastal Alabama watershed using Microbial Source Tracking, which detects genetic markers specific to human or animal waste.
The school
Stanford University: 87 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 739 research doctorates a year.
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