PRESS CONFERENCE
Announcing the Seckin Endometriosis Research Center for
Women’s Health at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL)
Thursday, May 1, 2025 10:00am
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Semir Beyaz, PhD
All right, we'll get started with the program. First of all, thank you so much for being here this morning. I know some of you traveled from different parts, some of you from Long Island. So welcome everyone to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. I'm Samir Beas, assistant professor here, and I've been working on understanding how cells work for a very long time. And fate and serendipity introduced me to Dr. Kin a few years ago where I started thinking very deeply about the cells of human endometrium. Endometrium is where most of us share a common history. Our life started there since we were a single cell stage. We attach there and it gives us life that we live throughout. But this remarkable tissue is one of the least understood tissues in our body, in human body. And this is frustrating to me as a scientist. So I'm a basic scientist.
I try to understand the most fundamental mechanisms, how things work. And so when I realized how little we knew about that tissue, I started discussing these problems of human endometrium, especially a disease that affects many women worldwide called endometriosis. And this is why we are here today, because after three years, we kind of made the first step towards a dream and a long journey to first understand this disease and then end it. So today, we are going to embark on a journey. To me, it's a very special day because Dr. Seskin devoted his whole life to understand that disease and help many patients worldwide. Many women, thanks to him, are now living the life that they always dreamt of. They don't suffer from the pain that many other unfortunate women are still suffering. And Dr. Seskin has been a champion in the field by advocating for understanding that disease.
The effort that he puts created endometriosis foundation that brought patients, scientists, clinicians everywhere. The advocacy also helped many young women worldwide figuring out that they are not alone and this is not a pain that they can just accept. So throughout my interactions with Dr. Sk and I always thought that, okay, we can end Endo, and it's part of his legacy and part of my future now that we will work relentlessly together. At Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, one of the most amazing scientific institutes in the world that I came six, seven years ago. And Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is known for its pioneering basic science research that can transform medicine. And we impacted a lot of lives in our a hundred plus years history by discovering basic mechanisms and then turning them into drugs that can help patients. So with that, I would like to introduce Dr. Kin, who will tell you about what we are going to do and what we have been envisioning and part of the center. My hope is that I will work relentlessly to turn his vision to end endo. So thank you.
