# Midcareer Mentoring in Patient-Oriented Research on Genitourinary Aging in Women

> **NIH NIH K24** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2023 · $193,433

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
This application for a K24 Midcareer Investigator Award will promote Dr. Alison Huang’s mentoring and
career development in patient-oriented research on genitourinary aging in women. Dr. Huang is a general
internist and women’s health investigator dedicated to advancing scientific understanding and improving
management of the impact of aging on women’s health, especially genitourinary health. With funding from
the National Institute on Aging and other NIH institutes/centers, she leads a nationally recognized, patient-
oriented research program that emphasizes shared factors underlying aging-associated genitourinary
dysfunction and other common aging syndromes such as physical function decline, cognitive decline,
depression and anxiety, and sleep disruption. Her work to date has created new patient-reported outcome
measures used in national and international studies of genitourinary health in older women and provided
new evidence to guide diagnostic and treatment strategies for conditions such as urinary incontinence,
urogenital atrophy, nocturia, and menopausal symptoms. She has also emerged as a successful mentor of
junior clinicians who have published high-impact research, obtained federally funded research awards, and
continued to participate in patient-oriented research on older women’s health.
Currently there are no K24 awards from the National Institute on Aging that support mentorship for research
on genitourinary aging in women or on older women’s health broadly. As a result, Dr. Huang seeks support
to expand her mentoring of diverse clinical trainees interested in studying genitourinary health and function
in older women as well as the impact of aging and menopause on older women’s health. She will leverage
past and current research projects that contribute a rich repository of data on aging-related urinary and
vaginal symptoms, aging-related changes in physical and mental function, and associated quality of life in
older community-dwelling women. She will address new research questions about relationships between
changes in urinary incontinence, physical performance, psychological function, and sleep quality and
disruption in older women in response to behavioral, physical activity-based interventions, using ancillary
measures incorporated into one of her recently launched clinical trials. She will develop a new workshop
series designed to guide early stage investigators in designing and conducting pilot or feasibility trials. She
will also carry out a formal mentoring program with plans for recruitment, development, and evaluation of
additional mentees from diverse backgrounds. These plans will make full use of the outstanding research
training environment at UCSF and leverage leadership positions that Dr. Huang already holds in multiple
NIH-funded training programs to identify and support high-quality mentees with the potential to become
leaders in patient-oriented research at the intersection of aging and women’s heal...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10652424
- **Project number:** 5K24AG068601-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** Alison Huang
- **Activity code:** K24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $193,433
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-08-01 → 2025-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10652424

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10652424, Midcareer Mentoring in Patient-Oriented Research on Genitourinary Aging in Women (5K24AG068601-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10652424. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*