October 9-10, 2018
Magee-Womens Research Summit: It all Begins with Women’s Health
In 2018, the inaugural Magee-Womens Research Summit brought together more than 500 attendees from 16 different countries to discuss complexities surrounding women’s health on a global scale. Scientists, clinicians, hospital administrators, and industry experts joined influential policymakers and prominent health advocates to exchange information and ideas intended to focus on women’s health research as a scientific priority across multiple disciplines.
Magee-Womens Research Summit 2018 Speaker Highlights
The Magee-Womens Research Summit brought together a broad and diverse cohort of scientists and stakeholders. It gave researchers the opportunity to showcase their work and meet others for potential
collaboration. It gave a voice to patients, and it launched an international conversation on topics that could potentially influence human health across the lifespan.
The Magee-Womens Research Summit brought together a broad and diverse cohort of scientists and stakeholders. It gave researchers the opportunity to showcase their work and meet others for potential collaboration. It gave a voice to patients, and it launched an international conversation on topics that could potentially influence human health across the lifespan.
University of Maryland School of Medicine
Margaret McCarthy
Makerere University, Uganda
Annette Nakimuli
Institute for Systems Biology, Providence St. John's Health
Leroy Hood
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Dennis Lo
Magee-Womens Research Institute
Yoel Sadovsky
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Subra Suresh
Bringing the best scientific minds in medicine together in one place.
The Magee-Womens Research Summit highlighted advancements in women’s health and reproductive biology and built a new conversation around future precision medicine-based discoveries addressing three key pillars of wellness:
Sex Differences Beyond X and Y: While some diseases - such as prostate or ovarian cancer - are sex specific, there are more widespread implications at play, too. Women face unique threats due to hormones, reproductive health, pregnancy, childbirth and menopause, and gender plays a role in the rate of occurrence, manifestation, diagnosis and even mortality rates.
9-90 Origins of Wellness & Disease: Biological, medical, nutritional, environmental and social determinants of health coalesce during this critical gestational period, influencing the course of wellness and disease for a lifetime.
Aging Reimagined in the Age of Precision Medicine: Until recently, it has been virtually impossible to target diagnostics, treatment and disease prevention based on an individual’s genetic makeup, exposures and lifestyle. However, rapid advances in biology and medicine are paving the way for longer, healthier lives. This new era of precision medicine is focused on keeping people well and preventing their transitions into disease states.
2018 Magee Prize Awardee
Magee Prize Team
The Placental Origin of Congenital Heart Defects
Yaacov Barak, Ph.D., principal investigator, Magee-Womens Research Institute; Myriam Hemberger, Ph.D., University of Calgary; Henry Sucov, Ph.D., University of South Carolina
Over twenty years ago, Dr. Yaacov Barak found that mouse embryos with a particular mutated gene — expressed only in the placenta — suffered fatal defects in both the placenta and the heart. Fixing the gene just in the placenta corrected the heart defect, and recently researchers have found a similar trend among human babies. Heart defects occur in approximately one in 150 live births, but causes are often unknown. If the Magee Prize-winning research solidifies the heart-placenta connection, it could lead to earlier detection, and even prevention of and treatment for congenital heart defects.
Magee Prize Finalists
Cardiovascular impact of Maternal-Fetal Cell Exchange
Hilary Gammill, M.D., University of Washington; Carl Hubel, Ph.D., Magee-Womens Research Institute; Annetine Staff, M.D., Ph.D., University of Oslo
In a phenomenon known as microchimerism, fetal cells pass through the placenta and take up residence within the mother’s body. This happens to a greater extent in a woman whose pregnancy is complicated by preeclampsia, which is associated with cardiovascular disease later in life. This team hypothesized that maternal-fetal cells contribute to heart disease in women both during and after pregnancy. The Magee Prize would have allowed for the collaboration for the researchers to reach larger, more diverse research populations.
Magee Prize Finalists
Editing The Human Germ Line
Kyle Orwig, Ph.D., Magee-Womens Research Institute; Alexander Yatsenko, M.D., Ph.D., Magee-Womens Research Institute; Katsuhiko Hayashi, Ph.D., University of Japan; Amander Clark, Ph.D., University of California Los Angeles
In the U.S., about 1.3 million people of reproductive age are infertile because they can’t produce viable germline cells - sperm or eggs. Faulty genes are responsible about half of the time. This team’s research into the genes that cause infertility and methods for repairing those genes aims to offer new hope to infertile patients.