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The Center for Women’s Reproductive Health (CWRH) is excited to announce the recipients of their University-Wide Interdisciplinary Center pilot grant program.

Those that will be receiving the grant are Dr. William Geisler, Professor of Medicine in the Division Infectious Diseases, in collaboration with Drs. Akila Subramaniam, Assistant Professor in the Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine in the Department of OB/GYN; Barbara Van Der Pol, Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases; Li Xiao Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology; and Jodie Dionne-Odom, Assistant Professor of Medicine, in the Division of Infectious Diseases. They will be receiving this award for their project “Prevalence of Mycoplasma genitalium Infection and Resistance in Pregnant Women in UAB OB Clinics.”

The overall goal of the CWRH is to foster interdisciplinary collaborations across UAB campus to improve women’s reproductive health (RH) and survival. The mission is to conduct research aimed at improving the RH and wellbeing of all women and their offspring, especially minority and under-served (including those in rural Alabama). It is also to facilitate collaboration between UAB researchers and developing scholars interested in women's RH. To accomplish their goals, the CWRH must maintain and continue to foster research funding opportunities while investing in their investigators and trainees and their affiliated divisions, departments, and schools. The highly competitive applications were evaluated by CWRH members with collective expertise in basic science, clinical research, and public health applying NIH criteria.

Congratulations to Drs. Geisler, Subramaniam, Van Der Pol, Xiao, and Dionne-Odom!

The Center for Women’s Reproductive Health (CWRH) and the Hypertension Research Center (HRC) are excited to announce the recipient of their collaborative University-Wide Interdisciplinary Centers pilot grant program. Dr. Rachel Sinkey, Assistant Professor of Maternal-Fetal Medicine in the Department of OB/GYN, and Dr. Eric Wallace, Associate Professor of Nephrology in the Department of Medicine, have been chosen to receive this award for the project “Validation of a Remote Monitoring Blood Pressure Cuff.”

The overall goal of the CWRH is to foster interdisciplinary collaborations across UAB campus to improve women’s reproductive health (RH) and survival. The mission is to conduct research aimed at improving the RH and wellbeing of all women and their offspring, especially minority and under-served (including those in rural Alabama). It is also to facilitate collaboration between UAB researchers and developing scholars interested in women's RH.

The Hypertension Research Center’s goal is to provide an environment and resources to support translational hypertension research from the early stages of basic science investigation through population research. Additionally, the Hypertension Research Center provides an infrastructure to enhance graduate and post-doctoral research and community outreach.

To accomplish their goals, the CWRH and HRC must maintain and continue to foster research funding opportunities while investing in their investigators and trainees and their affiliated divisions, departments, and schools. The Research Pilot fund was created to support research that generates preliminary data for future NIH or equivalent grant applications and that is relevant to hypertension and women’s RH. Both centers evaluated the highly competitive applications in detail. The members that participated in the evaluation have combined expertise in basic science, clinical research, and public health applying NIH criteria.

We would like to congratulate Drs. Sinkey, Wallace, and team on receiving this award!

May 20, 2020

Dionne Named Associate Director of Global Health

UAB’s UWIRC Center for Women’s Reproductive Health has named Dr Jodie Dionne-Odom to the new position of associate director of global health. She will join the CWRH leadership team in growing the center’s collaborative global health portfolio involving UAB investigators and partners at global health hubs. This portfolio includes the Cameroon Health Initiative at UAB (CHI UAB) which she co-directs and is supported by two MOUs between UAB and Cameroon partners. Working with the CWRH Director, Associate Directors and leaders of the CWRH Cores, the Dr Dionne-Odom will play an essential role in shaping and implementing strategies to advance global health research, training and service activities within CWRH.

Dr Dionne-Odom states, “My career passion for global health was kick-started when I learned about women’s health as an undergraduate living in Cameroon. Since then, I have led and participated in global health research and training initiatives in Cameroon, Zambia, Rwanda, Gabon, Haiti, and Peru with a focus on improving perinatal health in Africa.”

The mission of the CWRH is to conduct research aimed at improving the reproductive health (RH) and wellbeing of all women and their offspring, especially minority and under-served (including those in rural Alabama). It is also to facilitate collaboration between UAB researchers and developing scholars interested in women's RH. The major research themes at CWRH are currently maternal/child health and gynecologic conditions including genitourinary disorders and cancer prevention (reflecting the spectrum of benign conditions in women as they age) and their intersection with infections, cardiovascular disorders, obesity/diabetes, neurodevelopment and global health.

Jodie Dionne-Odom, M.D., MSPH
Asst Professor, Medicine – Infectious Diseases
Assoc Director, CWRH - Global Health
Assoc Scientist, Center for AIDS Research

Dr. Jodie Dionne-Odom is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Chief of Women's Health in the 1917 HIV Clinic. She is a physician-scientist with expertise in HIV, sexually transmitted infections, and perinatal hepatitis B infection. Dr. Dionne works in the US and Africa and she is a highly rated clinician, speaker, and mentor for students and trainees interested in women’s health. She is well-funded by NIH in her work to optimize the prevention and treatment of infections in pregnancy. Active clinical trials led by Dr. Dionne and conducted by the Cameroon Health Initiative Team (CHI UAB) were designed to test novel regimens to prevent malaria in pregnant women with HIV (PREMISE Trial) and perinatal hepatitis B transmission (REVERT-B Trial). Dr. Dionne also leads clinical trials at UAB that aim to improve STI treatment and prevention as part of the NIH-funded STI Clinical Trials Network and a prospective cohort study of outcomes in women and men living with HIV.

The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (OBGYN) is delighted to announce the recipients of the OBGYN Center for Women’s Reproductive Health (CWRH) pilot grant program.  The overall mission of the UAB OBGYN department is to provide the most up-to-date and effective care to patients, to advance the scientific understanding of women’s health, and to translate this new knowledge into improved diagnosis, treatment, and prevention, and educating our future.  In pursuit of this mission, the goal of the OBGYN CWRH Pilot Grant program is to maintain and grow interdisciplinary research opportunities in women’s reproductive health while investing in our faculty and coinvestigators through the CWRH. The CWRH has 5-functional cores: Clinical research operations and administration, Biostatistics and data management, Laboratory and biorespository, Global health and Information technology, and data acquisition.

The department has five divisions: Gynecologic Oncology; Maternal-Fetal Medicine; Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Services; Urogynecology and Pelvic Reconstructive Surgery; and Women’s Reproductive Healthcare. A total of $80,000 is awarded as shown below and includes funds set aside for the CWRH EMR Data Extraction initiative. The proposed 12-month projects will begin October 1 and funds will be available upon confirmation of their IRB. Please join in congratulating these investigators and their teams. 

OBGYN Division, Gynecologic Oncology  

1. PI: Haller J Smith MD, Instructor Fellow ( https://scholars.uab.edu/4414-haller-smith ) $20,000
   Collaborators:  Drs. Warner Huh, Michael Straughn, and Alan Tita
   Project Title: “Optimizing antibiotic prophylaxis for high-risk patients undergoing gynecologic surgery”

OBGYN Division, Maternal Fetal Medicine

2. PI: Brian M Casey MD, Professor ( https://scholars.uab.edu/6005-brian-casey ) $20,000
   Collaborators:  Dr Mark Powell (Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine)
   Project Title:  "Decreased Neuraxial Morphine and Adjunctive Peripheral Nerve Blockade to Reduce Severity of Side Effects and Opioid Use after Cesarean Delivery”

3. PI: Rachel Sinkey MD, Assistant Professor ( https://scholars.uab.edu/5043-rachel-sinkey ) $10,000
   Collaborators:  Drs. David Mauchley, Marc Cribbs, Luz Padilla, and Macie Champion
   Project Title:  “Maternal and Perinatal Outcomes Following Aortic Valve Replacement”

OBGYN Division, Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Services

4. PI: Jasmine Lee Chiang MD, Instructor Fellow $9,000
   Collaborators: Drs. Keshav Singh (Genetics) and Michael Straughn
   Project Title:  “Reproductive aging and fertility in an inducible mouse model of mitochondrial”

OBGYN Division, Women’s Reproductive Health

5. PI: Janeen Arbuckle MD, Assistant Professor ( https://scholars.uab.edu/790-janeen-arbuckle ) $10,000
   Collaborators:  Drs. Julie Wolfson (Hematology) and Jeff Szychowski (BDMC CWRH)
   Project Title:  "Menstrual Suppression in the Myelosuppressed: A Retrospective Review”  

Please direct any questions to Stacy Harris, stacylharris@uabmc.edu or 205.996.6262.