Summary
Dr Lynne Sykes is a Clinical Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, Imperial College London and a Consultant Obstetrician at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust with a specialist interest in preterm birth.
Her main research interest is in the role of inflammation/infection in spontaneous preterm labour, and has been working in this area for the last decade. Lynne's doctoral research explored the potential use of anti-inflammatory agents as a therapeutic strategy for the prevention of preterm labour.
She now leads a team who focus on the on the importance of the immune response in women who deliver preterm. One area of her work aims to decipher the role of viruses on bacterial induced preterm labour, with particular consideration to tissue dependent responses in the context of ascending versus haematogenous spread of infection. The other major part of her research is exploring patient specific immune responses to the gut and vaginal microbiota, and how this influences the risk of preterm labour.
Her research aims are to develop predictive tools based on immuno-phenotyping, deepen understanding of how immune-microbial interactions determines the risk of preterm birth, and to develop a strategy for immunomodulation for the prevention of preterm labour.
Selected Publications
Journal Articles
Chan D, Bennett P, Lee YS, et al., 2022, Microbial-driven preterm labour involves crosstalk between the innate and adaptive immune response, Nature Communications, Vol:13, ISSN:2041-1723
Pruski P, Dos Santos Correia G, Lewis H, et al., 2021, Direct on-swab metabolic profiling of vaginal microbiome host interactions during pregnancy and preterm birth, Nature Communications, Vol:12, ISSN:2041-1723
Pikovsky M, Tan MY, Ahmed A, et al., 2021, Euglycaemic ketoacidosis in pregnant women with COVID-19: two case reports, BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, Vol:21, ISSN:1471-2393
Bonnardel F, Haslam SM, Dell A, et al., 2021, Proteome-wide prediction of bacterial carbohydrate-binding proteins as a tool for understanding commensal and pathogen colonisation of the vaginal microbiome, Npj Biofilms and Microbiomes, Vol:7, ISSN:2055-5008, Pages:1-10
Zarasvand S, Bayar E, Adan M, et al., 2020, Rapid quality improvement in a preterm birth clinic care pathway during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bmj Open Quality, Vol:9, ISSN:2399-6641, Pages:1-9
Kim SH, MacIntyre D, Binkhamis R, et al., 2020, Maternal plasma miRNAs as potential biomarkers for detecting risk of small-for-gestational-age births, Ebiomedicine, Vol:62, ISSN:2352-3964
Bayar E, Bennett PR, Chan D, et al., 2020, The pregnancy microbiome and preterm birth, Seminars in Immunopathology, Vol:42, ISSN:1863-2297, Pages:487-499
Rasheed ZBM, Lee YS, Kim SH, et al., 2020, Differential response of gestational tissues to TLR3 viral priming prior to exposure to bacterial TLR2 and TLR2/6 agonists, Frontiers in Immunology, Vol:11, ISSN:1664-3224, Pages:1-27
Ridout AE, Ibeto L, Ross G, et al., 2019, Cervical length and quantitative fetal fibronectin in the prediction of spontaneous preterm birth in asymptomatic women with congenital uterine anomaly, American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Vol:221, ISSN:0002-9378, Pages:341.e1-341.e9
Cook J, Bennett P, Kim SH, et al., 2019, First trimester circulating MicroRNA biomarkers predictive of subsequentpreterm delivery and cervical shortening, Scientific Reports, Vol:9, ISSN:2045-2322
Sykes L, MacIntyre DA, Teoh TG, et al., 2014, Anti-inflammatory prostaglandins for the prevention of preterm labour., Reproduction
Sykes L, MacIntyre DA, Yap XJ, et al., 2012, The Th1:Th2 Dichotomy of Pregnancy and Preterm Labour, Mediators of Inflammation, Vol:2012, Pages:1-12