Dr Pia Ostergaard’s research interest mainly lies within lymphovascular medicine and her research group has for the past 10 years focused on the genetic causes of lymphatic failure. The group works closely with the Primary Lymphoedema Clinic at St George’s Hospital in London, where they see patients with all types of primary lymphoedema and other disorders where lymphoedema can be an associated feature. Dr Ostergaard’s group uses exome sequencing techniques to analysis DNA and they have been successful in identifying several genes for primary lymphoedema. Finding the genetic causes of lymphatic dysfunction in primary lymphoedema, increases our understanding of the development of the lymphatic system, and our results feed into the basic research on the lymphovascular system.