# Hormones and Genes in Women's Health: From Bench to Bedside

> **NIH NIH K12** · BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL · 2024 · $194,400

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Women and men are at different risks for disorders that occur at different stages of the lifespan from
development through aging and their sex differences have critical implications for therapeutic efficacy.
However, many of the mechanisms that explain these sex differences or disorders specific to women are still
unclear. The mission of our Harvard BIRCWH is to develop the next generation of scientist-clinicians as
leaders in the field of women’s health and sex differences who will contribute to understanding sex-dependent
vulnerabilities to clinical disorders and those specific to women. This competing renewal application seeks
continued support of a successful integrated interdisciplinary training program that is based on a translational
approach to understanding conditions with a higher incidence or different expression in women than men. The
program is modeled in the context of a lifespan perspective to identify etiologic mechanisms during fetal
development, puberty, adulthood, and aging, including the child-bearing years and menopause. Further, an
underlying assumption of our BIRCWH program is that an understanding of the role of hormones and genes
will provide the basis for understanding sex-dependent vulnerabilities to clinical disorders. The Division of
Women’s Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and the Innovation Center on Sex Differences in
Medicine, ICON-X (MGH), are the home sites for this Harvard-wide training program. The program capitalizes
on the long tradition of interdisciplinary research in women’s health and sex differences with mentors across
Harvard institutions: BWH, MGH, Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center, Boston Children’s Hospital, Dana
Farber Cancer Institute, McLean Hospital, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School
and the Eli & Edythe Broad Institute. Each BIRCWH scholar is assigned a team of mentors to operationalize
translational thinking. Primary Mentors are in clinical or basic research and provide the site at which the
scholar works. Secondary Mentors are in basic or clinical research (as a counterpart to the Primary) and help
to guide thinking, coursework and readings, depending on the scholar’s interests. Career Mentors advise
scholars in the relevant departmental and academic structures for career advancement. Mentors in Health
Disparities expose scholars to thinking about disparities and how health processes are influenced by
socioenvironmental factors. The Harvard BIRCWH program focuses on disorders with differences in incidence
and/or expression in women than men, including: Cardiovascular Disorders; Reproductive Endocrine &
Neuroendocrine Disorders; Neuropsychiatric Disorders; Autoimmune Disorders; and Female Cancers. By
capitalizing on the vast resources and faculty at Harvard and our 19-year successful BIRCWH history, Harvard
is an ideal site for continuing to offer an integrated, interdisciplinary and truly translational program that will
c...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 11175134
- **Project number:** 3K12AR084230-21S1
- **Recipient organization:** BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** JILL M GOLDSTEIN
- **Activity code:** K12 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $194,400
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2024-09-16 → 2026-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/11175134

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 11175134, Hormones and Genes in Women's Health: From Bench to Bedside (3K12AR084230-21S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/11175134. Licensed CC0.

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