At the Laird Lab at UCSF, I will be working with Jay Zussman, an MD-PhD candidate in the Laird and Wagner Labs, to understand the cellular and molecular details of germ cell development that will help us more broadly understand the determinants of ovarian fertility. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 19% of women experience infertility (they are unable to get pregnant after one or more years of trying). Reduced size and quality of the ovarian reserve underlies ovarian infertility in cases of premature ovarian insufficiency and age-related infertility alike. Primordial germ cells (PGCs), the precursors of eggs and sperm, undergo a peculiar and challenging migration during embryonic development. We will investigate whether this migration contributes to differences in the likelihood of a germ cell surviving and contributing to the ovarian reserve. The Laird Lab has generated a single-cell RNA sequencing dataset of migrating PGCs from E9.5-E11.5 in mice. We hypothesize that anterior migrating germ cells will be more proliferative, will encounter survival and proliferation signals sooner (from their surrounding niches), and will be more developmentally mature than their posterior counterparts. Through this research project, we will use differential gene expression, pseudotime, receptor-ligand interaction, and gene regulatory network inference analyses to understand developmental heterogeneity among migratory and post-migratory mouse primordial germ cells, the findings of which will be compiled in a poster presentation. By understanding what alters germ cell developmental potential, we can help guide the selection of the best quality germ cells in fertility medicine procedures. This will provide greater autonomy to people in structuring their lives and building families.