Dr. Tsai's research is focused on how hormones from the brain (neurohormones) control reproduction. Her research program explores two divergent yet interrelated subject areas. The first is more clinically oriented and examines candidate genes whose mutations cause reproductive hormone insufficiency and infertility in humans and rodents. The second has an evolutionary component and examines the broad pattern of how neurohormones evolved over the course of metazoan (multi-cellular organism) evolution.
