I was fairly surprised, shocked even, when I first learned that women or even female rodents were rarely used in the past for studies in health, even when researching the safety and efficacy of products for women like birth control pills. I discovered that anomaly when I became a member of a women’s group called Access Circles, an organization of women formed to help promote access in all areas from business and medicine to the arts and geopolitics. I thought surely that must have been a misprint, but research proved it true. Since then I have joined the board of Women’s Health Access Matters (WHAM!) to support its CEO’s efforts to level the playing field in women’s health matters. The CEO of both Access Circles and WHAM is Carolee. She will be speaking about this topic on a panel tomorrow in honor of National Women’s Health Week.
The Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) has partnered with the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to host the 5th Annual Vivian Pinn Symposium: Integrating Sex and Gender into Biomedical Research as a Path for Better Science and Innovation. In line with ORWH’s mission of putting science to work for the health of women, this event serves as a forum for experts across sectors to communicate and collaborate for the advancement of women’s health, while highlighting the economic and societal benefits of sex and gender-aware research.
The symposium is being held today, May 11th, and tomorrow, May 12th, as part of National Women’s Health Week, and will focus this year on illustrating the scientific, societal, and economic opportunities of integrating sex and gender into biomedical research and the power of working together. A series of panels and breakout sessions will feature experts from across diverse sectors of academia, industry, non-profits, private funding, and government to generate discussion of system-wide solutions and drive progress towards a healthier future for everyone.
At 10:15am on Wednesday, May 12th, Carolee Lee (CEO of AccessCircles and WHAM!) will be sharing her findings from the WHAM Report in a panel discussion entitled, “Putting Skin in the Game: The Economic Opportunity,” which is about increasing investments in women’s health research across sectors. Other panelists include Jennifer Friel Goldstein (Managing Partner, Lifesciences and Healthcare Practice, Silicon Valley Bank); Elizabeth Bailey (Director of Development & Investor Engagement at Rhia Ventures); Faz Bashi (Lead Venture Investor, Portfolia FemTech Fund I & II); Robert Califf (Head of Clinical Policy and Strategy for Verily and Google Health, Adjunct Professor, Duke University and Stanford University, and Former FDA Deputy Commissioner to Barack Obama); Anula Jayasuriya (Founder and Managing Director, EXXclaim Capital, and Co-founder Evolvence India Life Science Fund); and Nola Masterson, Managing Director, Science Futures LLC.
You can register for the 5th Annual Vivian Pinn Symposium here.