00:00Medical student Akiti James is on the front line of research into endometriosis.
00:09She knows first hand what it's like living with the severe pelvic pain that comes with the condition.
00:16You'll be lying on the floor, maybe in the shower, pain going down your legs as well.
00:22And if you don't get on top of that pain quickly, it really gets out of control.
00:28It happens when tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows elsewhere.
00:33In one age group, about one in seven women and those assigned female at birth are affected.
00:41Ms James has set up a biobank of tissue donated by women who've had surgery in Perth.
00:47We want to really understand how and why endometriosis occurs
00:51so that we can find better treatments and better ways to diagnose people with endometriosis that aren't so invasive.
00:59Here we keep the cells in the incubator so that they can grow.
01:03Science student Sarah Walsh is studying the cells grown from the tissue as part of her PhD.
01:09So we get to characterise it and try and figure out what actually is in the lesions.
01:15She's got high hopes of what can ultimately be achieved.
01:18If we can figure out something like a blood test, like you have this marker, you could potentially have endo.
01:24And if we can figure out what these guys are doing, we can treat endometriosis.
01:28Right, so these are pretty much my everyday painkillers.
01:32Teagan Phillips has tried everything to treat the pain she's had since her early teens.
01:37It impacts on relationships, your sense of self, your ability to pursue hobbies, to pursue opportunities at work.
01:46So you can see, this is your uterus up here.
01:48She's now preparing to have surgery again because the symptoms returned shortly after her initial operation to diagnose and remove the endo in 2018.
01:59It's never ideal to be having rape hate surgeries, but I feel like there's only so many non-surgical options that are available and effective.
02:07This is patient 41 and two samples that she gave us were her ovary and her uterus.
02:12Doctors say the biobank, one of a number nationally and part of an international network, is a vital component in trying to understand the enigma of endo.
02:22The more biobank samples we have throughout the world, the more researchers can unlock the secrets.
02:29Investment in research has increased in recent years, but endo still receives less funding than other chronic diseases.
02:37Sarah Walsh has to process the samples for the biobank as a volunteer.
02:42If we did have someone who was paid to be a research assistant, we could really broaden the number of samples that we process and also take them from different sites.
02:53A bank of hope for future generations.
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