Featured Programs & Scientists

Distinguished University Professor

Associate Provost for Clinical and Translational Science

Director, South Carolina Clinical and Translational Research Institute (SCTR)

Dr. Brady is an experienced clinical and translational researcher and has been conducting scientific investigations and clinical work in the field of psychiatric disorders and addictions for over 25 years. Her research focuses on pharmacotherapy of substance use disorders, comorbidity of psychiatric disorders and addictions (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder), gender differences and women’s issues in addictions, and the neurobiologic connections between stress and addictions. She has received numerous federal research grants and has published over 300 peer-reviewed journal articles and co-edited 10 books. She is the principal Investigator of MUSC’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA), Principal Investigator of the Southern Consortium Node of the NIDA-funded Clinical Trials Network and Director of MUSC’s Women’s Research Center. Her dedication to furthering research careers has attracted a number of junior investigators and clinicians. She has mentored over 25 individual NIH funded faculty development awards (K-awards) and is presently involved in three institutional faculty development programs (CTSA KL2; BIRCWH, NIDA K-12). She has been the Co-Director of MUSC’s NIH- funded post-doctoral fellowship program focused on translational research training in addictions for 15 years.

Andrea Dunaif, M.D., is the Charles F. Kettering Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. She is the Director of the National Institutes of Health-supported Northwestern University Specialized Center of Research on Sex Differences. Formerly, she was Chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Molecular Medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine for 10 years. Before joining Northwestern in 2001, Dr. Dunaif held faculty appointments at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Dunaif is an internationally recognized expert in endocrinology and women's health. Her research on polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) has shown that it is a leading risk factor for type 2 diabetes mellitus. Further, this research has revolutionized the treatment of PCOS with insulin sensitizing drugs. Most recently, she has led an international team that has successfully mapped novel susceptibility genes for PCOS. Dr. Dunaif has more than 135 original scientific publications and has edited four books. She has received numerous awards and honors including the Endocrine Society's highest award for clinical research, the Clinical Investigator Award, and a Doctor Honoris Causa from the University of Athens Medical School. She has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. She is a past president of the Endocrine Society, a former associate editor of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and Obesity and a past Chair of the National Institutes of Health Integrative and Clinical Endocrinology and Reproduction Study Section. She is listed in Best Doctors in America, US News-Castle Connolly Top Doctors in America and Consumer's Research Council of America Guide to America's Top Physicians.

Nancy E. Lane, M.D., is an Endowed Professor of Medicine, Rheumatology, and Aging Research, Director for the Center for Musculoskeletal Health, Director of the K12 NIH Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH), and principal investigator of the NIH funded Program on Sex Differences in Musculoskeletal Diseases Across the Lifespan, and Co-PI of the P50 CORT Translational imaging in osteoarthritis. Dr. Lane is an internationally recognized translational scientist in the fields of both osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. Her translational research team has been instrumental in defining the role of glucocorticoids in bone fragility and in performing seminal clinical studies with PTH to reverse this osteoporosis. In addition she has uncovered novel genetic variations that predispose individuals to osteoarthritis and has studied novel treatments for knee osteoarthritis. She organized and directs an NIH funded junior faculty grant writing workshop that has taught over 300 junior faculty in musculoskeletal medicine grant writing skills that has resulted in a 45% success rate in applicants receiving research grants (2006- present). She has been recognized for her accomplishments with election to the National Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Mayer has a career long interest in clinical and research aspects of brain body interactions, with a longstanding focus on brain gut interactions in health and disease. A particular research interest has been the role of sex related differences in the interactions between the brain and the viscera (gastrointestinal, urological) in health and disease (such as chronic visceral pain syndromes), and in the role of the gut microbiota in brain gut communication. He is the director of the UCLA Specialized Center for Neurovisceral Science & Women's Health, the executive director of the Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, and co-Director of the CURE: Digestive Diseases Research Center He has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1989. He has published 330 peer reviewed articles in the leading GI and Neuroscience journals, including 100 reviews and book chapters and has co-edited three books. He has given a TEDx talk on the topic of brain gut microbiome interactions, and his book The Mind Gut Connection will be published by Harper Collins on July 5, 2016.

Wendy M Kohrt, Ph.D., is a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Geriatric Medicine at the University of Colorado – Anschutz Medical Campus. She holds a secondary appointment as Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at that institution and an adjunct appointment in the Department of Integrative Physiology at the University of Colorado Boulder. Dr. Kohrt's research program is focused on metabolic actions of sex hormones and the consequences of gonadal aging. She has been continuously funded as a PI by the NIH since 1990 and is currently the PI for a NIH Specialized Center of Research on Sex Differences, a NIH R01 subcontract, and a Department of Defense research grant. Dr. Kohrt holds several leadership positions, including: Associate Director of the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, Associate Director of Research for the Eastern Colorado VA Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center, Associate Director of the Center for Women's Health Research, Director of Research for the Colorado BIRCWH Program, and Director of Research for the Division of Geriatric Medicine.

John O. L. DeLancey, M.D., is the Norman F. Miller Professor of Gynecology at the University of Michigan Medical School and Director of Pelvic Floor Research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He graduated from Oberlin College with Honors in Biology and the University of Michigan Medical School where he also did his residency training.

Dr. DeLancey was elected in 2012 to the National Academy of Medicine for pioneering discoveries about the fundamental biomechanics of pelvic organ prolapse, birth-related pelvic floor injury, and the mechanisms of urinary incontinence. His research has received $20 million dollars in NIH funding, resulted in over 230 scientific publications and led to invitations to be a keynote lecturer in over 30 countries on 5 continents. He has been President of the American Urogynecologic Society and the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons having also received its Distinguished Surgeon Award.

Dr. DeLancey and biomechanical engineer James A. Ashton-Miller, began collaborating in the 1990's to apply the principles of biomechanical analysis to understanding pelvic floor function and dysfunction and the remarkable structural changes that occur during vaginal birth. This work developed novel MR imaging techniques with detailed spatial analysis and advanced biomechanical modeling to elucidate the structural mechanics of the pelvic floor disorders and their relationship to birth injury. Along with Ashton-Miller and Janis Miller, RN, Ph.D. he founded the Pelvic Floor Research Group at the University of Michigan whose members have won many national and international awards for their research including awards from the International Continence Society, International Urogynecology Association, American Urogynecologic Society, Society of Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine, and Urogenital Reconstruction and National Association for Continence.

Dr. DeLancey has an active practice specializing in surgical and clinical treatment for complex and refractory problems of pelvic organ prolapse and incontinence. His medical expertise has been recognized by selection for Who's Who in Medicine and Best Doctors in America. He lives in his hometown of Ann Arbor with his wife and three children.

Marilyn Carroll, Ph.D., received her doctoral training from Florida State University, in Psychobiology and Neuroscience in taste and feeding behavior. She did postdoctoral work at the University of Minnesota on the interaction of feeding behavior and drug addiction under an NRSA, and she continued on the faculty and is currently Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience. She has had continuous NIH funding for 41 years with R01s, P01s, a MERIT award, and currently the SCOR P50. She initially studied individual differences in addictive behavior and treatments for addiction by modeling the behavior in rats and monkeys and collaborating with colleagues in Psychiatry to extend her findings to humans. In 1980 her lab was the first to study and publish on sex differences in drug addiction, and later that work was extended to other addictions (food), impulsive behavior, and sex differences in the treatment of these behavioral disorders. The lab has also focused on hormonal influences that account for sex differences, and findings indicate more vulnerability in females than males, and novel treatments have been developed that apply to humans. Currently as Director of the SCOR grant she is working with her Co-I, Dr Sharon Allen, M.D., to study the effects of progesterone combined with other medications and behavioral treatments in users of cocaine, tobacco cigarettes, and tobacco-marijuana co-users. Dr. Carroll has received numerous awards for her research including the Brady-Schuster Award, Division 28, American Psychological Association,

University of Minnesota President's and Medical School's Neuroscience Initiative Award, the Marian Fischman Award, Outstanding Woman Scientist, 2012, and Election to Academy for Excellence in Health Research, University of Minnesota. She has also trained hundreds of undergraduates, graduate students, medical students, and postdoctoral students who, now as faculty, currently contribute to work that is important to ORWH and NIDA.

C. Neill Epperson, M.D. is Professor of Psychiatry and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Epperson has over 20 years experience in the research and treatment of mood and behavioral disorders across the female reproductive life cycle, with a more recent emphasis on the contribution of sex and gender differences to neuropsychiatric conditions. To this end, her laboratory utilizes a wide range of scientific tools, including brain imaging, psychophysiology, hormone treatment, amino acid depletion and pharmacologic challenge. The Epperson laboratory is housed in the Penn Center for Women's Behavioral Wellness at 3535 Market Street and is affiliated with the Departments of Psychiatry, Obstetrics and Gynecology and Radiology. Doctoral and post-doctoral students have the opportunity to participate in and conduct translational neuroscience studies focusing on the neuroendocrinology of affective, nicotine use and cognitive disorders in women. Dr. Epperson also co-directs the new cross-school initiative, Penn PROMOTES Research on Sex and Gender in Behavioral Health and the new Penn Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health (BIRCWH) Program.

Scott Hultgren is the Helen Lehbrink Stoever Professor of Molecular Microbiology at Washington University in St. Louis where he also serves as the inaugural Director of the Center for Women's Infectious Disease Research. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2011. He received his undergraduate education at Indiana University, his Ph.D. at Northwestern University in Chicago, and his postdoctoral training at Umeå University in Sweden under the tutelage of Staffan Normark. He is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and has been honored with a Distinguished Investigator Award at Washington University. He received the Eli Lilly award (1998), the preeminent Microbiology award granted for individuals younger than 40. In 2012 he was received "The Fellows Award" that recognizes a distinguished individual for outstanding achievement in science by the St. Louis Science Academy. He was the Co-Chair of National Conference sponsored by ORWH/NIH and Washington University, "Moving into the Future: New Dimensions and Strategies for Women's Health Research." Other honors include a Nobel Fellowship; an NIH Merit grant; an honorary Doctor of Philosophy at Umeå University in Sweden, a Shipley Lecturership at Harvard University and Chairmanship of a Gordon Conference on Microbial Attachment. Further, he has been recognized as Course Master of the Year and Academic Women's Network Mentor of the Year in honor of his dedication to teaching. Dr. Hultgren has mentored more than 50 individuals as pre- or post-doctoral trainees; fostering their success in establishing their own professional careers.

Dr. Sherry McKee, is a Professor of Psychiatry, at the Yale School of Medicine, has developed and directs the Yale Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory. Her work over the past 20 years has been directed at developing effective treatments for addiction, with a particular focus on tobacco and alcohol. Dr. McKee's translational work spans human laboratory paradigms, clinical trials, survey research, and epidemiological research to uncover the mechanisms underlying poor outcomes and to translate these findings into improved interventions. As the PI for Yale's Translational Center to Develop Gender Sensitive Therapeutics for Women's Health (Yale-SCOR) she leads an interdisciplinary team conducting translational cross-species research focused on expediting the development of gender-sensitive therapeutics, mentoring junior faculty, and providing a national resource on women and tobacco. Dr. McKee has been continuously funded as a PI over the last 20 years, with much of this work focused on researching sex differences in addiction. Dr. McKee has received awards for her research contributions from the Society of Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, NIDA, American Psychological Associations, and the Research Society on Alcoholism. She has held national leadership positions and is currently (2016) the President of APA's Society of Addiction Psychology.