‘This is a monumental step forward for women and for advancing our health equity’

• Link to: Northwestern Now Story

CHICAGO --- President Joe Biden on Monday signed an executive order to expand and improve how the U.S. federal government funds health research about women, who historically have been and currently still are underrepresented in medical research. The move comes just after President Biden’s State of the Union address in which he called on Congress to make an investment of $12 billion to create a Fund for Women’s Health Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Experts at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have published numerous studies that highlight the lack of sex inclusion in scientific and clinical research. Some have developed technology to help address the gap. The experts can address why there has historically been a lack of sex inclusion in biomedical research, why including more women in health research is so necessary and what this means for scientists going forward. Contact Kristin Samuelson at ksamuelson@northwestern.edu to arrange an interview with the scientists.

“I’m thrilled our administration has recognized the need for dedicated and sustained investment in women’s health research,” said Nicole Woitowich, executive director of the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute and a research assistant professor in the department of medical social sciences at Feinberg. “This is a monumental step forward for women and for advancing our health equity.”

“I am passionate about women’s health and making sure that we consider sex in biomedical research instead of continuing along with the assumption that everything works exactly the same in men and women, despite so many very obvious differences in health and disease,” said Barbara Stranger, associate professor of pharmacology at Feinberg who appeared in November 2023 in a virtual panel, “Sex as a Biological Variable,” convened by the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health.

Below is a brief introduction to several Northwestern experts in this area, along with some of their recent relevant work:

• Julie Kim: Professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Feinberg
  • 2023 study in Lab on a Chip: Device can simulate disease and test how drugs and diseases affect people (including women) differently
  • Kim also was involved in an earlier project, EVATAR (a mini female reproductive tract in a dish), which enables scientists to conduct much-needed testing of new drugs for safety and effectiveness on the female reproductive system.

• Jecca Steinberg: Medical resident in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Feinberg
  • June 2021 study in JAMA Network Open: Women and men are each underrepresented in clinical trials of different medical fields: “Neglecting one sex in clinical trials — the gold standard scientific exploration and discovery — excludes them from health innovation and skews medical evidence toward therapies with worse efficacy in that sex.”

• Barbara Stranger: Associate professor of pharmacology at Feinberg
  • May 2023 study in Cell: She developed a guide outlining best practices for studying and testing for sex-dependent genetic effects.
  • 2020 study in Science: Sex influences gene production in every human tissue

• Nicole Woitowich: Executive director of the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute and a research assistant professor in the department of medical social sciences at Feinberg
  • Nov. 2021 study in Frontiers in Global Women’s Health: Sex and gender bias in COVID-19 clinical case reports
  • June 2020 study in eLife, Females still an afterthought in research: A 10-year follow-up to a 2009 groundbreaking study that found females were left out of biomedical research because of how their hormones might skew fragile study designs, an idea that has repeatedly been proven false.