August – September 2025 Connors Connection

Dear Connors Center Community,

Welcome to Connors Connection! Our monthly post is your go-to source for the latest news from the Center, including exciting updates, publications, press highlights from our community of talented investigators, and information on upcoming events and awards. You’ll find each new edition featured 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 and Funding Updates:

• It is with immense pride and also sadness to share that our Executive Director, Hadine Joffe, MD MSc, will be leaving the Connors Center to assume the role of Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), just across the street. While Dr. Joffe will undoubtedly be missed here at the Center, we warmly congratulate her on this exciting new chapter in her career and look forward to witnessing the continued impact of her important work at BIDMC. Read the full announcement from MGB Academic Leadership here and join us on November 13th for Dr. Joffe’s going away party, more details to come.
• The Connors Center’s 8th Annual Research Symposium will be taking place in person on October 28th from 3-5pm, with a reception to follow, the Marshall A. Wolf Conference Center. The Keynote speaker will be Roberta Brinton, PhD, Director of the Center for Innovation in Brain Science at the University of Arizona. Dr. Brinton’s keynote will focus on Alzheimer’s Disease and the aging female brain. Learn more and register for the event here.
• Applications are now open for the 2026 IGNITE Awards. Letters of Intent are due October 24th, 2025. BWH investigators can apply for the BWH Connors Center IGNITE or the BWH-MGB Collaborative IGNITE Awards. Learn more about the IGNITE Awards here or access the RFP here. Please direct any questions to ConnorsCenter@bwh.harvard.edu.
• Applications are now open for the Connors Center Emergency Support Fund Awards. These awards were created to extend funding to investigators in the sex-informed and women’s health research space who have experienced grant terminations and unexpected short-term funding gaps, whether based on research area, institutional targeting, or foreign components. Proposals are due October 17, 2025. Learn more and apply here. Please direct any questions to ConnorsCenter@bwh.harvard.edu.
• The Sex-Informed Research Collaborative Think Tank (SIRCTT) will host its first in-person Mixer on November 19th from 3-4pm in the Marshall A. Wolf Conference Center. The Mixer will include a panel on translational research in women’s health and small group networking. Register to attend here.

Grants and Announcements:

• 2021 IGNITE Awardee Vesela Kovacheva, MD, PhD received an NIH grant for her research on “Ethical, multimodal AI tool for prediction of preeclampsia risk in early pregnancy”, a continuation of her IGNITE project research. Learn more here.
• Former First.In.Women Fellow Maria Pabon, MD (shown right) presented on “Sex differences in cardio-kidney metabolic syndrome: insights from the FINE-HEART pooled analysis of >18,000 trial participants” at the 2025 European Society of Cardiology Congress. Learn more about her presentation here.
• ROSA Project Leader Jorge Chavarro, MD, ScD has been appointed to the position of Dean for Academic Affairs at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Read the announcement here.
• Funding Opportunity: The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) is now accepting applications, due November 21st, for their new Women’s Health Initiative. To learn more or sign up for one of the upcoming info sessions click 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. Four awards will be given. 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.

Press:

• Feldman, Natalie, MD: “What No One Told Me About Postpartum Anxiety—Until I Lived It” Parents. September 2025.
• Klerman, Elizabeth, MD, PhD: “Bedtime Story” Harvard Gazette. September 2025.
• Mahalingaiah, Shruthi, MD:
  • “Early Period Crisis: Girls Hit Puberty Younger, Face Higher Health Risks” Medscape. August 2025.
  • “Closing The Gender Gap In Clinical Trials With Digital Devices” Clinical Leader. August 2025.
• Manson, JoAnn, MD, DrPH, MACP:
  • “New Analysis of Women’s Health Initiative Data Aims to “Clear the Air” Over Menopausal Hormone Therapy” JAMA Medical News. September 2025.
  • “Vitamin D supplements reduce signs of aging at the cellular level, Brigham and Women’s study finds” Boston Globe. September 2025.
  • “Stopping menopausal hormones may require more bone monitoring” Science News. August 2025.
  • “5 things doctors want you to know before you start taking a GLP-1” Washington Post. July 2025.

Publications:

• Aris, Izzuddin, PhD, Chavarro, Jorge, MD, ScD, Manson, JoAnn, MD, DrPH, MACP, Oken, Emily, MD: “Associations of adverse childhood experiences with midlife cardiovascular health in women” Am J Prev Cardiol. August 2025.
• Bikdeli, Behnood, MD, MS:
  • “Apixaban for Extended Treatment of Provoked Venous Thromboembolism” N Engl J Med. August 2025.
  • “Superficial Vein Thrombosis: A Review” JAMA. September 2025.
    • Audio Interview: “Superficial Vein Thrombosis”.
• Dutta, Rohini, MBBS, MPH: “Investing in women’s health: blended finance for cancer care” The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology, & Women’s Health. September 2025.
• Feldman, Natalie, MD, Liu, Cindy, PhD, Mittal, Leena. MD: “Postpartum anxiety: a state-of-the-art review” Lancet Psychiatry. September 2025.
• Fida, Doruntina, MPH, Joseph, Anna, BA, Rajasekera, Therese, PhD, Spagnolo, Primavera, MD, PhD, Wilson, Julie, BA: “Sex differences in endocannabinoid and inflammatory markers associated with posttraumatic stress disorder”, Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry, October 2025.
• Joffe, Hadine, MD, MSc, Koire, Amanda, MD, PhD, Rich-Edwards, Janet, ScD, MPH, Spagnolo, Primavera, MD, PhD: “Sex differences in clinical trial enrollment in the United States across psychiatric disorders” Contemporary Clinical Trials. September 2025.
• Mahalingaiah, Shruthi, MD, Shafiee, Hadi, PhD: “Digitally Enabled AI-Interpreted Salivary Ferning-Based Ovulation Prediction: Feasibility Study” J Med Internet Res. August 2025.
• Mahmoudi, Morteza, PhD: “The Importance of Sex-Based Comparisons in Preclinical Nanomedicine and Regenerative Chronic Wound Therapies” ACS Biomater Sci Eng, September 2025.
• Manson, JoAnn, MD, DrPH, MACP:
  • “Integrating Diet and Physical Activity When Prescribing GLP-1s-Lifestyle Factors Remain Crucial” JAMA Intern Med. September 2025.
  • “Comparative Effectiveness of Metformin Versus Sulfonylureas on Exceptional Longevity in Women With Type 2 Diabetes: Target Trial Emulation” J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. June 2025.
  • “Global Sociodemographic Disparities in Ischemic Heart Disease Mortality According to Sex, 1980 to 2021” Circ Cardiovasc Qual Outcomes. July 2025.
• Pace, Lydia, MD, MPH: “Means Testing and Contraceptive Uptake Among Young People” JAMA Pediatr. August 2025.