Women and men are at different risks for the onset, expression, and treatment response in a number of disorders that occur at different stages of development and throughout aging. The mechanisms that explain these sex differences or disorders specific to women are still unclear. The mission of this BIRCWH proposal is to develop the next generation of scientist-clinicians as leaders in the field of women's health who will contribute to understanding sex-specific vulnerabilities to clinical disorders, and those disorders specific to women. This application seeks support to create an integrated interdisciplinary training program that will be based on a translational approach to understanding differential incidences of specific disorders important for women's health. The program will be modeled in the context of a lifespan perspective to identify etiologic mechanisms during fetal development, puberty, adulthood, and aging, with some focus on female-specific periods such as child-bearing years and menopause. Further, an underlying assumption in this BIRCWH program is that an understanding of the role of hormones and genes will provide the basis for understanding sex-specific vulnerabilities to clinical disorders. The Connors Center for Women's Health &Gender Biology at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) will be the home site for this endeavor, in the broader context of a Harvard-wide training program. This BIRCWH program will capitalize on the long tradition of interdisciplinary research in women's health with Mentors who already collaborate across institutions at BWH, Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, McLean Hospital, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School and the Eli &Edythe Broad Institute. Scholars will be assigned a team of Mentors. In order to operationalize the concept of training Scholars to think in a translational manner, each of four Scholars will be assigned a Primary and Secondary Mentor. Primary Mentors will be in clinical or basic research and provide the site at which the Scholar works. Secondary Mentors will be in basic or clinical research (as a counterpart to the Primary) and will help to guide thinking, suggest coursework, and readings, depending on the Scholar's interest. A Career Mentor (senior HMS/HSPH faculty and senior administrators) will advise Scholars in the relevant departmental and academic structures for career advancement. Finally there will be a Mentor in Health Disparities, who will expose Scholars to thinking about how the roles of hormones and genes in predicting morbidity can be influenced by social/environmental factors. This BIRCWH proposal will focus on the following disorders, given both the known higher incidence in women than men and/or differential expression in women and the strengths of the Harvard community in women's health. They include: Cardiovascular Disorders;Reproductive Endocrine &Neuroendocrine Disorders;Neuropsychiatric Disorders;Autoimmune Disorders;and Female Cancers (e.g. breast, ovarian &uterine). By capitalizing on the vast resources and faculty at Harvard, we would argue that this BIRCWH proposal is offering an integrated, interdisciplinary and truly translational program that will train the next generation of leaders in women's health.
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