April-August 2025 Connors Connection

August 6, 2025

Dear Connors Center Community,

Welcome to Connors Connection! This monthly post will replace our email newsletter and serve as the central course for news about our Center, exciting updates, publications, and press from our community of talented investigators, as well as relevant upcoming events and awards that may be of interest. Moving forward, you can find the latest edition of Connors Connection on our website’s homepage and in the news section. If you would like to get email reminders when a new post is published, you can sign up here.

Connors Program Updates:

In June, Connors community members gathered to celebrate our graduating fellows (shown right with leadership): Marissa Caan, MD and Samina Mahesar, MD, MCRC, CRC from the Women’s Mental Health and Reproductive Psychiatry Fellowship and Kendra Harris, MD from the Complex Family Planning Fellowship. Each fellow presented on the impactful research projects conducted during their fellowship.
Over the past few months, The Sex-Informed Research Collaborative Think Tank (SIRCTT) held its first events, a Mixer for interested investigators and meetings for its first education and networking program cohort. SIRCTT’s goal is to support and expand collaborative women’s health and sex-differences research initiatives across the Mass General Brigham system. Building on the long-standing mission of the Connors Center to advance the health of women via research, education and training, SIRCTT aims to provide an academic home for the MGB community of scientists focused on sex-differences and women’s health research. If you’d like to get involved in SIRCTT you can join the faculty or submit your information to our Research Matrix, which recently launched on our website.

Announcements:

Twelve Connors members attended ENDO 2025, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting. Shalender Bhasin, MBBS, Delphine Franssen, PhD, Ursula Kaiser, MD, and Victor Navarro, PhD all chaired sessions. Dr. Franssen also presented an oral abstract, as did Encarnación Torres Jiménez, PhD. Dr. Torres Jiménez also presented a poster, along with Irene Gonsalvez, MD (shown upper right), Sidney Pereira, PhD, Jorge Plutzky, MD, Clara Sailer, MD, PhD (shown upper right), Ellen Seely, MD, and George Stamatiades, MD. Dr. Seely also received the Outstanding Mentor Award. JoAnn Manson, MD, DRPH, MPH received the Outstanding Clinical Investigator Award. Learn more about ENDO 2025 here.
Connors Center Executive Director, Hadine Joffe, MD, MSc (shown lower right presenting), recently delivered a Grand Rounds presentation hosted by Yale’s Department of Psychiatry’s Division of Women’s Behavioral Health. The presentation was titled “Interrogating Female-Specific Contributions and Translating Therapeutic Strategies” and focused on the progression of depressive disorders in women across the lifespan, characterized female-specific contributors to depression risk in midlife, and identified clinical strategies for treating depressive and sleep disorders during menopause, read more here.
Connors Director of Research Training, Laura Holsen, PhD, was the Keynote Speaker for the Prader-Willi Syndrome 2025 Clinical and Scientific Conference. Her talk was titled ” Mapping Brain Circuitry Involved in Hyperphagia in Prader-Willi Syndrome to Identify Novel Treatment Targets “. Learn more here.
Poster Opportunity: On Monday, October 6th, 2025 the Harvard Radcliffe Institute is hosting its annual Science Symposium and is currently accepting poster proposals from undergraduate, graduate students, and postdocs to participate in the Poster Session and Ideas Fair during the event. Submissions should be related to the symposium’s themes: X-linked cancers and women’s health across the lifespan (which includes fertility, brain health, and longevity). . Submit a poster proposal here.
Funding Opportunity: Women’s Health Access Matters is now accepting applications for their 2025 Edge Awards. These $25,000 grants support trailblazing early-stage research that drives discovery, accelerates impact, and advances the future of women’s health across four core areas: heart health, brain health, autoimmune disease, and cancer. In 2025, they are also accepting proposals that address healthspan, bone and muscle health, novel approaches to women’s health conditions (such as endometriosis, menopause, and PCOS), and innovative methodologies, including AI and secondary data analysis. Learn more about the Edge Awards here. Applications for the award are due September 15, 2025, and should be emailed to marianne@whamnow.org, who can be reached for questions in the meantime. View the application here.
Funding Opportunities (BWH Investigators Only): The BWH Program for Interdisciplinary Neuroscience (PIN) and the Women’s Brain Initiative (WBI) are announcing several new research funding opportunities, all due Friday, October 10th, 2025:
- WBI Pilot Funding awards (one year, $50,000 direct costs plus indirect costs up to 20%): This program supports research proposals that address questions related to women’s brain health. It is open to early career researchers (postdocs, clinical fellows, instructors, or assistant professors within three years of appointment) whose primary appointment is at BWH. We expect to make up to four awards. Learn more here.
- WBI is also establishing a temporary Emergency Support Fund for BWH PIs who have lost funding because of recent Federal actions. The WBI fund will provide up to $50,000 (direct) plus IDC up to 20%, for PIs whose research is aligned with the WBI mission and who have lost a previously funded grant since Jan 20, 2025. Learn more here.
- PIN Pilot Funding awards: This program is open to early career researchers at BWH (defined as above) and will provide one year of funding ($50,000 plus 20% IDC). Two awards are expected to be given out in this cycle, one of which will be in the field of brain tumors and the other in any field of basic or clinical neuroscience. Learn more here.

Awards and Grants:

Connors Center Executive Director, Hadine Joffe, MD, MSc, along with Connors member Rachel Buckley, PhD, Gillian Coughlan, PhD, MSc, and Martha Hickey MBChB (all shown upper right) received one of 15 signature grants from Wellcome Trust focused on understanding menopause and hormonal drivers of risk for Alzheimer’s dementia in women. The goal of their multi-project grant is to investigate the links between menopause age and type (natural, surgical) and use of hormone therapy with Alzheimer’s dementia in women. Learn more here.
Connors Scientific Advisor JoAnn Manson, MD, DrPH, MAC and member Shalender Bhasin, MBBS co-leaders of the Brigham-Boston XPRIZE Healthspan team, were selected to receive Top 40 Milestone 1 funding in the International XPRIZE Competition and an opportunity to compete for the $101 Million grand prize to test therapeutics to extend ‘healthspan’ and delay the onset of aging-related diseases. Milestone 1 awardees were selected from 600 registered teams across 58 countries. Learn more here.
Connors Center Associate Director and Scientific Director of the First.In.Women® Precision Medicine Platform, Primavera Spagnolo, MD, PhD, received an MGB Psychiatry Accelerator grant with Antonia Seligowski, PhD from MGH for their research “Endocannabinoid regulation of cardiovascular risk mechanisms in PTSD”.
ROSA investigators Suzie Bertisch, MD, MPH, and Susan Redline, MD, MPH received a $14.1 million PCORI Funding Award for their project “Comparing Digital Therapy, Trazodone and Daridorexant for Menopause-Related Insomnia Symptoms.”
2023 Casey Toolin McAuliffe Memorial IGNITE Awardee Paula Voinescu, MD, PhD the Department of Neurology’s 2025 Edward B. Bromfield Award for excellence and commitment to patient care, teaching, and clinical collaboration.
The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) announced its 2025 Women’s Health Initiative
Awardees, which included 3 Connors affiliated investigators (all shown lower right). 2021 IGNITE Awardee Vesela Kovacheva, MD, PhD received a Women’s Health Innovation Grant and ROSA Project Co-Lead Ursula Kaiser, MD and Research Fellow Therese Rajasekera, PhD both received First Look Awards. Learn more about the awards and their research here. The MLSC is also now accepting applications, due November 21st, for their new Women’s Health Initiative. To learn more sign up for one of the upcoming info sessions here.
Connors Research Scientist Amanda Koire, MD, PhD received a 2025 travel award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.