MSU researchers in women’s health will use a five-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, to create a mentoring program that will connect junior faculty with experienced researchers.
The Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health, or BIRCWH, program will be housed in the College of Human Medicine, said Mary Nettleman, a grant recipient and chairperson of the MSU Department of Medicine.
MSU also has contributed funds for the program.
The BIRCWH program will provide salary support, one-on-one mentoring and peer review for researchers in the field of women’s health, Nettleman said.
Researchers often are pressed to find time to complete their work because of monetary restraints, teaching classes and other duties, she said.
“It protects their time and provides money for their research,” Nettleman said. “It’s a rare opportunity for MSU to able to support its junior faculty.”
MSU faculty with less than six years of research experience from the time they received their last degree will be able to apply in a few months, Nettleman said. The program will accept up to five recipients at a time and support them for two to four years.
The NIH’s Office of Research on Women’s Health was initiated in 2000 to fund programs that support junior researchers, said Joan Nagel, the NIH interdisciplinary research programs director.
The grant was awarded through a competitive, peer-reviewed funding application process.
MSU’s program was chosen to join 62 similar programs at 40 institutions across the nation, she said.
“The intergenerational aspects of the mentoring plan should ensure that scholars obtain exposure to many disciplines as they conduct their interdisciplinary research in women’s health,” Nagel said.
The gap between women’s and men’s health information and research needs to be addressed, said Claudia Holzman, an epidemiology professor and BIRCWH program director.
“For a long time, we just studied populations overall without really breaking them down by male and female to see if there are differences,” Holzman said.
Research in women’s health can reveal important information for the treatment and diagnosis of diseases, Holzman said.
“Women may respond to treatments differently and have different symptoms for diseases,” she said.
The program will offer symposiums, critiques and seminars where the researchers can present their findings, Holzman said.
“Recipients will have a network to be able to support each other,” she said.
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