Governor Hobbs urged attendees to take the lead in making medicine more equitable. Celebrating the impact that women are making in medicine and science and supporting their growth as leaders was the focus of the 6th Annual Women in Medicine and Science (WIMS) Fall Networking Event.
University of Arizona researchers developed a wearable device that can transmit health data 2,400 times the distance of Wi-Fi without significant network infrastructure.
Felicia Goodrum, PhD, interim associate department head and professor of immunobiology in the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson has been accepted into the Hedwig van Ameringen Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine program hosted by Drexel University. She is also a professor in the BIO5 Institute, a member of the UArizona Cancer Center and a member of the AEGIS Consortium.
Detecting the neurodegenerative disease at an earlier stage might open doors to more effective and targeted treatments.
The National Institute on Aging has awarded a $13.1 million grant to a team of investigators across the country led by Janko Ž. Nikolich, MD, PhD.
Unfortunately, many aspects of women’s health are underfunded and understudied. Better understanding women’s health conditions and microbiomes can help lead to better health outcomes and improve the quality of life. Amy Randall-Barber from the BIO5 Institute was joined on Science Talks by Dr. Nicole Jimenez, currently in the Melissa Herbst-Kralovetz lab, at the University of Arizona College of Medicine — Phoenix with a focus on women’s health research. She received her doctorate from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and was awarded two postdoctoral fellowships in 2023, one from the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona and the other from the BIO5 Institute.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
ARB: Before we get started, I’d like to ask a few icebreaker questions. What’s one of your nicknames?
I don’t have a unique nickname, just Nikki.
But I was thinking more about this. I play Dungeons and Dragons, and one of my character’s names is Sin Nombre, which means ‘without name’. And the funny thing is that my PI, Melissa, worked early in her career on a virus called the Sin Nombre virus. I recently found this out and thought it was so interesting and serendipitous!
ARB: That’s too cool!
What’s your hidden talent?
I would say my hidden talent would be cooking, and more recently mixology. During the pandemic, I was working on my dissertation, but I also picked up mixology. More recently, I've been focusing on non-alcoholic cocktails. I have many different wood burning tips for smoking as well as different bitters. It's a really fun experience. With the no-alcohol craze coming around, you still want to socialize and create a beautiful experience to share with others.
ARB: What’s your favorite drink to make?
As far as an alcoholic drink is concerned, I would say a Negroni. That has Campari, gin and some other bitters in it. Then for non-alcoholic, I usually make a rose mule with rose syrup and ginger.
ARB: The rose mule sounds delicious. If I come to Phoenix, you’ll have to make me one!
Let’s get into your research. What is your current research and what got you interested in it?
I was recruited to the University of Arizona to work on the microbiome. In my graduate career, I was working on the microbiome and its relationship to pregnancy and preterm birth. Here, I get to work on the microbiome, including rectal, vaginal, endometrial, and how it relates to gynecologic cancers as well as benign gynecologic conditions such as endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain.
I got into this research because when I was picking my major at Arizona State University, I became a nutrition major since I wanted to see how environmental factors impact health. I learned about the gut microbiome, and it got me fascinated with how that impacted human health. And so, I switched my major to microbiology and stayed in this vein of research.
ARB: I love to hear those kind of journey stories and what the pivotal moments are.
Can you tell us about the overall research goals of your lab?
The Herbst-Kralovetz lab focuses on women's health research. We incorporate metabolomics, microbiome, and immunoproteomics to better understand how certain conditions occur. We also think about better ways that we can modulate the microbiome to have better health outcomes.
Right now, our focus is on gynecologic cancers. Mostly cervical cancer and endometrial cancer, as well as these benign gynecologic conditions. Some of them have similar characteristics to cancers such as adenomyosis — an overgrowth of cells in the muscles of the uterus — as well as endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain.
ARB: Can you tell us about the most exciting part of your research and how it fits in to those overall goals?
As a woman working in the women's health space every day, I discover something different. It took me researching in this area to learn about the different symptoms. The most exciting part is not just learning all that information, but also trying to create change in the management of those symptoms.
We're creating early diagnostics. For example, it currently takes six to seven years for a patient to get diagnosed with endometriosis. And that's not acceptable. My social science background has helped me understand some of these discrepancies and why they're happening.
ARB: How do they diagnose endometriosis?
Usually it's through symptoms, MRIs or other diagnostics. To fully understand endometriosis, you have to have surgery or biopsy, which is really invasive. Our lab is focusing on other ways that we can diagnose sooner and less invasively.
ARB: That would be great for all women.
Can you talk more about the difference between your two fellowships? Are the projects for your postdoctoral fellowships the same or different?
Both fellowships that I was awarded are on a particular bacterium called Atopobium vaginae, now called Fannyhessea vaginae. During my graduate school career, we identified that this one bacterium is three.
However, not a lot of research has been done on those three. Are they different from one another? Are they similar? This particular bacterium has been associated with bacterial vaginosis (BV), increased inflammation, and more recently, endometrial and cervical cancer. So, you can see how that ties into our lab’s overall goals.
My project is focusing on those three newly identified species in our clinical cohorts for cervical and endometrial cancer. I’m also looking at associations for different clinical factors, metabolic profiles or immunoproteomic profiles.
Then we also have this sub-study of my postdoctoral work in the Herbst-Kralovetz lab focused on a 3D cell culture model. It looks similar to human tissue, and we can infect these cells with bacteria. Then, we look at how they change the immune and metabolomic environment. That gives us better understanding of host pathogen interactions, such as how those bacteria are potentially progressing cancer.
ARB: Have you had any influential mentors in your personal life or educational career?
Many of my mentors are so important. I think I had my first mentor when I was in high school. And then when I went to undergrad, I had a whole bunch of different mentors because I was part of this scholar program called Los Diablos where you're assigned a mentor for each year that you're in the undergrad program.
Then during graduate school, I obtained even more mentors, because I was part of the Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD) program and prep programs funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Currently, through the BIO5 Postdoctoral Fellowship, I created a mentorship committee where I have mentors in Tucson and Phoenix who are guiding me not only on my project, but also on career advice. Right now, as a postdoc, I’m wondering, “Where am I going next? How do I get there? What advice do they have that made them successful?”
Because giving back to the community is important to me, I’m currently mentoring students in our lab, which is predominantly 90% women.
I want to get more women interested in science and women's health, which tends to be underfunded and under researched. So, I’m involved with the WISE program, the Women in Science and Engineering at the University of Arizona as well as the Los Diablos program. Now instead of just being a mentee, I'm a mentor.
ARB: That’s full circle! Thank you for all your mentorship.
What’s next for you? Do you tend to live in the moment or have a big plan?
I think it takes a bit of both to be successful in academia and in science. For me, I like to plan out major goals and how I can get there. But you also have to be flexible. Your experiment might not go right, or a grant opportunity might just pop up and you have to quickly apply for it.
My next step is to work towards a K-99 grant, so that it can transition me from my postdoc position to an academic professorship position. I'm working on a few other grants now, too, and our lab is working on publishing many, many manuscripts.
ARB: We will definitely be on the lookout for those papers. Thank you again for joining us and sharing your story.
The BIO5 Institute at the University of Arizona is set to embark on a groundbreaking journey by officially expanding its footprint to Phoenix. This move marks a significant step in fostering collaborative biosciences research across Arizona and beyond.
“The vision for the BIO5 Institute in Phoenix is to become a catalyzing force for interdisciplinary biosciences research, magnifying connections between Phoenix-based and Tucson-based BIO5 members, utilizing BIO5 resources, and integrating with the larger Arizona biosciences community,” said Jennifer Barton, BIO5 Institute director.
While the BIO5 Institute already has over a dozen faculty members in Phoenix, the formal expansion to Phoenix is not just a geographical milestone, but a testament to the institute's dedication to advancing biosciences research through collaboration, innovation, and education.
An open house mixer on November 13 in Phoenix officially launched the expansion by welcoming over 60 members of the UArizona community along with industry professionals. To forge strong relationships with both faculty and the biosciences industry, the BIO5 Institute hired a strategic engagement coordinator, Marissa Starks-Bahn, earlier this year who will be housed at the UArizona Biomedical Sciences Partnership Building.
“Our goal is to grow our BIO5 membership in Phoenix while providing the same level of services a Tucson member may receive. In addition, we want to play a larger role in connecting our existing Phoenix and Tucson BIO5 members with UArizona resources as well as industry expertise,” said Barton. “We will also be able to better support UArizona Phoenix-based initiatives such as the Center for Advanced Molecular and Immunological Therapies (CAMI) and educational program expansion.”
Strengthening and expanding translational research is a key initiative for the BIO5 Insitute, aligning with the Technology and Research Initiative Fund (TRIF) funding that helped launch the institute over 20 years ago. This special investment in higher education by Arizona voters is intended to expand major efforts in biomedicine and biotechnology that will provide a return on investment to the people of Arizona.
A BIO5 member since 2017, Melissa Herbst-Kralovetz and her lab aim to positively impact women’s health by conducting biomedical research with a high translational value in a clinical setting.
One current project in the Herbst-Kralovetz lab is endometrial cancer, the 4th most common cancer in women, that can only be diagnosed through painful and invasive procedures.
Rising obesity rates and an aging female population, two main risk factors, are causing increasing rates of endometrial cancer, particularly in Arizona. But obtaining funding can be difficult for research that isn’t focused on pregnancy and childbirth.
“Visibility is key for increasing awareness about gaps in women’s health research, particularly aging and menopause, two topics that are understudied,” said Herbst-Kralovetz, a professor in the Departments of Basic Medical Sciences and Obstetrics and Gynecology and director of the Women's Health Microbiome Initiative at the UArizona College of Medicine – Phoenix. "A few years ago, I accompanied Jennifer Barton to the governor’s office to ask for additional funding and support for the BIO5 Institute. That was a great opportunity to discuss the needs in women’s health research here in Arizona and why it needs to be prioritized in terms of funding.”
She hopes the expansion of the BIO5 Institute’s footprint will lead to more opportunities for her to discuss her research with government officials as well as raising awareness of women’s health conditions within the Phoenix community.
Another of the BIO5 Institute's key initiatives is providing its faculty members with opportunities for seed grant funding. These smaller grants are crucial support for galvanizing scientific projects that can lead to larger grants and more long-term stability for interdisciplinary research. This strategic approach has proven to be a catalyst for innovation and propelled the institute to the forefront of biosciences research.
Taben Hale, a professor in the Department of Basic Medical Sciences at the UArizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, joined the BIO5 Institute in 2023. She studies the causes and consequences of high blood pressure to identify novel treatment strategies to allow people to live longer and healthier lives.
“I’m excited to bridge disciplines and tap more broadly into academic and industry connections as a BIO5 member,” said Hale. “Opportunities to get seed grants are critical for stimulating those collaborative projects and generating the preliminary data that is necessary to then obtain federal funding.”
Furthermore, the BIO5 Institute is committed to shaping the future workforce of scientists through programs like the KEYS Research Internship, the BIO5 Institute’s flagship summer internship program for high school students interested in developing STEM skills under the mentorship of UArizona scientists. Plans to integrate KEYS in Phoenix are already being discussed.
Another way to prepare the future workforce is providing financial support and mentorship for up-and-coming researchers. Now in its fifth year, the BIO5 Postdoctoral Fellowship is an internal funding mechanism for postdoctoral researchers engaged in research projects aligned with the institute’s mission. The fellowship has already supported several outstanding postdoctoral fellows in Phoenix, 2023 fellow Nicole Jimenez and 2022 fellow Erik Blackwood, with hopes to support more.
All these initiatives not only nurture emerging talent but also contribute to the institute's overarching goal of advancing biosciences research in Tucson, Phoenix and beyond.
College of Medicine – Tucson researchers will create a portable virtual reality device to quickly assess traumatic brain injuries when and where they occur.
Shirin Doroudgar, PhD, works as an assistant professor in the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix’s Department of Internal Medicine and is an active member of the Translational Cardiovascular Research Center, where she leads a research group in cardiac molecular biology, focused on understanding changes in protein homeostasis and cellular stress responses that contribute to heart disease.
Dr. Cynthia Miranti, PhD, and her team are doing just that by developing the first successful Prostate-on-a-Chip model that recreates the development and differentiation processes that occur in a normal human prostate gland.
