Ludeman Center Director and co-Founder Judy Regensteiner, PhD, will open the 17th Annual Women’s Health Research Day at CU Anschutz. The first session will feature scientific presentations from three stand-out Ludeman Center researchers. The talks will demonstrate the breadth of research being conducted in women’s health and sex differences on campus.

Presenters:

• Catherine Demers, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry
• Aubrey Armento, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Orthopedics
• Joanne Cole, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics

Two pairs of successful collaborators will discuss their journeys in scientific partnership. This interactive panel will allow the audience to ask their burning questions about how to engage in scientific collaborations that enhance the careers of each participant and further biomedical discovery through team science.

Moderator:

Eileen Chang, PhD, MCR, Research Instructor, Department of Pediatrics, Section of Neonatology

Panelists:

• Kathleen (KC) Woulfe, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology
• Tasha Garcia, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Section of Cardiology
• Sue Gu, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Critical Care Medicine
• Benjamin Kopecky, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology

Join us for a lunch break and opportunity to view and engage one-on-one with our scientific poster presenters. This is the first of two poster presentations for this event.

SUBMIT A POSTER ABSTRACT BY MARCH 9.

Sex differences exist in brain disorders in prevalence and manifestation. Funding agencies enacted policies to ensure researchers include sex and gender in their work due to the recognition that most research was male focused. But do the policies unintentionally ignore within-sex and gender experiences that contribute to health and disease? Less than 5% of studies in neuroscience/psychiatry consider sex as a discovery variable, and less than 3% consider female-specific variables such as pregnancy history, or menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) type. As a result, females face significant health care gaps. To address these limitations, my research has investigated how sex, stress, estrogens, and female-specific experiences, such as pregnancy influence the brain to alter disease susceptibility and treatment efficacy to advance precision medicine. Too often we generalize terms that impact the mental health of women including pregnancy, menopause, menopausal hormone therapy without acknowledging the rich heterogeneity attached to these terms. This heterogeneity matters for precision treatment and represents missed opportunities to understand the impact of different types of hormone therapies or experiences on mental health. I will show that not all estrogens influence brain plasticity equally, that pregnancy history influences how the brain reacts to estrogens in mid-life, and these findings may help understand why MHT findings are equivocal on brain health in menopausal females. To understand complex brain disorders, such as those surrounding mental health, it is important to recognize diversity in our pre- and clinical modelling to lead to better health outcomes for all.

Introduction:

C. Neill Epperson, MD, Professor and Robert Freedman Endowed Chair of Psychiatry

Keynote Speaker:

Liisa Galea, PhD, Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Toronto

Experts in women’s health research will discuss the challenges facing scientists in the field today. This moderated panel will also look at the opportunities ahead to further the study of the health of women in our current climate.

Moderator:

Rebecca Scalzo, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes

Panelists:

• Tracy Bale, PhD, Professor and Anschutz Foundation Endowed Chair in Women's Integrated Mental and Physical Health Research, Director for InterGenerational Stress and Health, Director for Sex Differences Research in the Department of Psychiatry
• Barbara Stranger, PhD, Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics and Lyda M. Ludeman Endowed Chair in Biomedical Informatics in Women's Health Research

In our second half of the day’s scientific poster presentations, attendees will have the opportunity to view and engage one-on-one with our poster presenters. Ludeman Center Director and Co-founder Judy Regensteiner, PhD, will close out the day’s event.

SUBMIT A POSTER ABSTRACT BY MARCH 9.