Northwestern receives $5 million for study.(on polycystic ovary syndrome)

2002 DEC 12 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Northwestern University has been awarded more than $5 million by the National Institutes of Health Office of Research on Women's Health to establish a Specialized Center of Research (SCOR) to study polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a disorder associated with irregular menstrual periods, infertility, excessive body hair and increased risk for diabetes.

The SCORs represent an important new NIH initiative in women's health.

Northwestern was one of 11 leading medical institutions selected as SCOR sites on the basis of having at least three highly meritorious research projects that explore an important issue related to sex/gender health differences.

Andrea Dunaif, MD, Charles F. Kettering Professor and chief of endocrinology and metabolism and professor of medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine, is the principal investigator on the SCOR, which will focus on the role of genes, androgens [male hormones] and intrauterine environment in PCOS. The goal of the study is to elucidate the pathogenesis of PCOS and provide the potential for molecular diagnosis of the syndrome.

In addition to Dunaif, who also will direct one of the four projects making up the SCOR, other Northwestern collaborators include Jon Levine, professor of neurobiology and physiology at the Judd A. and Marjorie Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences, who is the SCOR codirector and a principal investigator on another of the projects, as well as Feinberg School researchers Randall Barnes, MD, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology; Boyd Metzger, MD, professor of medicine; and Margrit Urbanek, assistant professor of medicine.

Institutions also participating in the SCOR are the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center, Madison; the California Regional Primate Research Center, University of California, Davis; and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

The Agenda for Research on Women's Health for the 21st Century, written by the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health, identified PCOS as an "endpoint disease state of high priority."