RACHEL PIERSANTI
Hey, I am Rachel and I am a PhD student under Dr Bromfield at University of Florida.
I am from Brazil, originally from Rio de Janeiro. I am a veterinarian and I got my degree at Federal University of Goias, Brazil. I started to work in the reproduction department as an intern, during my second year of vet school and left when I graduated. I worked with the addition of different antioxidants to fresh/cooled and frozen equine semen, trying to improve the quality of the semen during transport and cryopreservation.
The first time I came to UF was in 2011 to do my final internship before finishing vet school and I worked with Doppler ultrasonography to evaluate blood flow in the uterus and ovaries of post-partum mares that were supplemented with omega 3 fatty acids.
After that I went back and got my DVM. I went to Sao Paulo to do a residency in equine reproduction at Equicenter, where I stayed for a year. We managed around 500 mares and 20 stallions in an embryo transfer program. It was a great period of my life and I learned a lot.
I finished the residency and went back to Goias, where I start working in a reproduction center, also with embryo transfer but in a smaller scale. During this time I got to travel a lot to visit farms and centers around the middle of Brazil. It was an amazing experience and I got to meet lots of beautiful places and people that I will never forget.
I decided to apply for a fellowship from the Brazilian government to do my PhD here at University of Florida because research was always a big interest of mine since vet school. I was awarded the fellowship in December 2013 and started my PhD program here in January 2014.
I am very excited to be working here and I believe that is our responsibility as researchers, to make the animal production industry as strong as possible, so they can continue to provide to the population high quality food products in an efficient way.
PUBLICATIONS
Piersanti RL, Block J, Ma Z, Jeong KC, Santos JEP, Yu F, Sheldon IM, Bromfield JJ. Uterine infusion of bacteria alters the transcriptome of bovine oocytes. FASEB Bioadv. 2020;2(8):506-520.
Dickson MJ, Piersanti RL, Ramirez-Hernandez R, de Oliveira EB, Bishop JV, Hansen TR, Ma Z, Jeong KC, Santos JEP, Sheldon IM, Block J, Bromfield JJ. Experimentally induced endometritis impairs the developmental capacity of bovine oocytes. Biol Reprod. 2020; 103(3):508-520.
Horlock AD, Piersanti RL, Ramirez-Hernandez R, Yu F, Ma Z, Jeong KC, Clift MJD, Block J, Santos JEP, Bromfield JJ, Sheldon IM. Uterine infection alters the transcriptome of the bovine reproductive tract three months later. Reproduction. 2020; 160(1):93-107.
RL Piersanti, JEP Santos, IM Sheldon, JJ Bromfield. Lipopolysaccharide and tumor necrosis factor-alpha alter gene expression of oocytes and cumulus cells during bovine in vitro maturation. Mol Reprod Dev. 2019; 86(12):1909-1920.
Piersanti RL, Horlock AD, Block J, Santos JEP, Sheldon IM, Bromfield JJ. Persistent effects on bovine granulosa cell transcriptome after resolution of uterine disease. Reproduction. 2019; 158(1):35-46.
Piersanti RL, Zimpel R, Molinari PCC, Dickson MJ, Ma Z, Jeong KC, Santos JEP, Sheldon IM, Bromfield JJ. A model of clinical endometritis in Holstein heifers using pathogenic Escherichia coli and Trueperella pyogenes. J Dairy Sci. 2019; 102(3):2686-2697.
Rachel LF Piersanti, PhD Thesis. 2018. Effects of uterine disease on the ovary of dairy cows.