Infertility is a deeply personal and global health issue, affecting one in six adults. Current treatments, however, often focus on symptoms rather than root causes, resulting in pregnancy success rates of just 30 percent.
“Together with the emotional, financial, and societal toll of infertility, this low efficacy underscores the urgent need for more precise interventions,” says Camila Consiglio, assistant professor at Lund University’s Faculty of Medicine.
Camila’s project, fertiliMMUNE, will investigate how the immune and reproductive systems communicate to support a successful pregnancy. “It is becoming increasingly clear that reproduction and immunity are deeply intertwined, making the immune system a promising target for fertility treatment,” she explains. “A successful pregnancy requires coordinated local and systemic immunological adaptations starting even before conception.”
Understanding the link between immunity and fertility
During pregnancy, the maternal immune system faces a unique challenge. It must tolerate the developing fetus, which carries genetic material from both parents, while still protecting the mother and baby from potential infections. Camila’s work will focus on understanding how this delicate balance is achieved, and what happens when it is not.
“Major gaps still exist in our understanding as to how the immune and reproductive systems regulate one another and impact pregnancy outcomes,” says Camila. “My ERC Starting Grant project aims to uncover mechanisms of human immune-reproductive crosstalk and define novel targets for fertility treatment.”
Camila’s drive to pursue this research stems from her broader passion for improving equity in healthcare. “I deeply care about promoting more equitable care in medicine,” she says. “For instance, immune-mediated diseases show clear sex differences, with men experiencing more severe infections and higher cancer rates, while women have stronger vaccine responses and greater risk of autoimmunity. Yet, treatment strategies for such diseases still neglect biological sex, which contributes to widening disparities in health outcomes between men and women.”
Over the past decade, Camila has studied how sex hormones such as estrogen and testosterone shape immune cell function. These same hormonal pathways are critical during reproduction, where finely tuned immune responses are essential for pregnancy. fertiliMMUNE will build on this foundation, seeking to uncover how these immune mechanisms affect fertility and pregnancy outcomes.
Targeting infertility through immune-driven treatments
The ERC Starting Grant provides Camila with the resources to take on these complex, interdisciplinary questions.
“The ERC starting grant represents a unique opportunity to pursue this ambitious, high-risk research that would not be possible through other funding mechanisms,” she says. “With the support of the ERC, I can bring together diverse expertise, build the necessary infrastructure, and lead a research program with the depth and continuity needed to tackle these challenges.”
Ultimately, Camila’s goal is to translate discoveries from the lab into treatments that can improve pregnancy success rates and reduce the heavy burden of infertility.
“The ERC starting grant will make it possible for us to advance our understanding of immune–reproductive crosstalk, and pave the way for more precise, equitable, and effective fertility treatments that could transform care for millions of people worldwide,” she concludes.
