The National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH) will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a day-long symposium on Monday, Sept. 27, in Bethesda, Maryland.  Discussed will be highlights of early accomplishments in women's health research, as well as a preview of the next decade A Vision for the Year 2020. Many of the advances involve medical differences between women and men, and implications for sex/gender — appropriate clinical care and personalized medicine.

A keynote speaker will be former NIH Director Bernadine Healy, M.D., who launched the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), a $625-million effort to study the causes, prevention, and cures of diseases that affect women at midlife and beyond. The WHI study continues to uncover critical information, including recent evidence that combined hormone replacement therapy carries a greater risk for heart attack and stroke than previously thought, particularly in older women.

The scientific keynoter will be Linda G. Griffith, Ph.D., professor and chair of MIT's Biological and Mechanical Engineering Department. She will discuss the integration of tissue engineering and systems biology in women's health research.   A scheduled guest speaker in the afternoon is actress Cicely Tyson, who won three Emmy Awards and was nominated for an Academy Award for her portrayals of strong, positive African-American women. Her women's medical research interests include high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke, especially in minority patients. Her acting career, begun in 1957, remains active. This will be her first visit to the NIH campus.

The free and open symposium will conclude with a reception honoring many of the women and men who are heroes of women's health research. For more details, visit http://orwh.od.nih.gov or call ORWH at 301-402-1770.