Closing the Gender Gap in Basic Research
November 6, 2014

Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News eyes new rules to reduce sex disparity in animal, cell and human research.  The article quotes WHRI's director Teresa Woodruff.  Read more.....

Cancer Patients can Realize the Dream of Parenthood
November 6, 2014

Institute Director Teresa Woodruff is also the founder of a new discipline:  oncofertility!   She has changed the future for many young men and women who have survived cancer and want to have children.  Read more....

Faculty Building Tissue Chip Model of the Female Reproductive System for Safer Drug Screening
November 5, 2014
Pregnant Women must be Studied Too
November 4, 2014

Katherine Wisner, MD, member of the WHRI Leadership Council is coauthor of the  article "Pregnant women must be studied too" that has been published  in The Conversation, an online academic news source originally published in the UK and Australia,  Last month, they launched thier US edition.   Dr. Wisner is an expert on depression and mood disorder in women and has a particular interest in helping women with these conditions during thei reproductive years.  Read the article.....

 

Editorial in JAMA by Linda Van Horn discusses popular diets
September 4, 2014

Linda Van Horn, PhD, RD, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Associate Dean for Faculty Development at Northwestern and member of the Leadership Council of the  Women's Health Research Institute, wrote an editorial in JAMA in response to a publication in the same journal that compared outcomes of popular diets.   In her editorial, VanHorn notes that while several diets result in weight  loss, not all diets are healthy.   To read her editorial, click HERE

Where Are All the Female Test Subjects?
September 4, 2014
By Cari Romm

NOTE:   This article featured interviews with Insitute members Melina Kibbe, MD and Director Teresa K Woodruff, PhD.

In 1987, the National Institutes of Health made a bold update to its grant guidelines, encouraging scientists seeking funding to include women and minorities in their clinical research. Six years later, the U.S. Congress took things a step further by passing the NIH Revitalization Act, which legally mandated the inclusion of women and minorities “in numbers adequate to allow for valid analyses of difference in intervention effect.”

Medical Research Rarely Uses Female Test Subjects
September 3, 2014

Chicago Tribune | By Lisa Black

September 2, 2014

Women and men often react differently to illness and treatment, yet surgical researchers rarely use female animals or cells in their published studies--to the detriment of patients, a Northwestern University professor has concluded. Dr. Melina R. Kibbe, senior author of a study published Thursday in the journal Surgery, said she was stunned by what she found during her review of five medical journals published in 2011 and 2012.

"The manuscripts we reviewed were really pitiful," Kibbe said Friday. "About one-third of the manuscripts did not state the sex of the animals or cells. That was a surprise to me because these are peer-reviewed." Of the 2,347 articles reviewed, 618 included animals and/or cells, she found. In the surgical literature where sex was identified, 80 percent of the studies used only males.

Stephen Colbert Features Sex Inclusion in Research
August 5, 2014

Stephen Colbert's show featured clips from the Women's Health Research Institute's recent 60 Minutes segment on sex inclusion in research. More than ever, it is essential to include male and female animals at the research level to ensure that sex is examined as a variable that can lead to different treatments and medications for different genders.

Wisner comments on antidepressants and hot flashes
July 17, 2014

Psych News July 17, 2014
Antidepressant May Have Role in Treating Menopause Symptoms
http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsarticle.aspx?articleid=1890220
“The results of this carefully conducted study provide women and their physicians with critical data to guide treatment for vasomotor symptoms . . . , which affect the lives of the majority of midlife women,” Katherine Wisner, M.D., a professor of psychiatry and obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University, told Psychiatric News.
Katherine Wisner, MD is a Member of the Women's Health Research Institute's Leadership Council

WHRI Council Member talks about Melasma
July 10, 2014

Bethanee J. Schlosser, assistant professor of dermatology and director of Women’s Skin Health at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago and a Council member of the Women's Health Research Institute  comments on Melasma in the Digital Journal.   Melasma is a common skin problem that causes brown to gray-brown patches on the face.