Welcome to the Oregon BIRCWH

The Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH), in the Director's Office of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), established the BIRCWH Program  in 2002 to advance mentored research career development of junior faculty who will be engaged in interdisciplinary basic, behavioral, clinical, or health services research in women's health. The Oregon BIRCWH program is dedicated to training tomorrow's leaders in women's health research.

Photo of BIRCWH Leadership and Scholars: Drs. Leslie Garcia, Quin Denfeld, Mary Roberts Davis, Bethany Samuelson Bannow, Estela Vasquez Guzman, Deanne Tibbitts, and Leslie Myatt, and Susan Rosenkranz
BIRCWH Leadership and Scholars (Left to Right): Drs. Leslie Garcia, Quin Denfeld, Mary Roberts Davis, Bethany Samuelson Bannow, C. Estela Vasquez Guzman, Deanne Tibbitts, and Leslie Myatt, and Susan Rosenkranz (Program Coordinator).
OHSU Research Week 2024 NW Women's Health and Sex/Gender Differences Conference

Wednesday, May 8, 2024, at OHSU Auditorium and Old Library

Conference registration is now open!

The Oregon BIRCWH Program, OHSU Center for Women's Health, and the OHSU Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology are proud to announce the 2024 Northwest Women's Health and Sex/Gender Differences Research Conference at Oregon Health & Science University.

This year's theme is:  The power of collaborative research in women’s health and sex/gender differences. 

This full-day in-person conference is designed to ignite cross-institution, multidisciplinary research partnerships and collaborations within the Portland area and the greater state of Oregon. Previous conferences have been incredibly successful in developing new partnerships that have progressed to grant proposals, funding, and research. The conference takes place during OHSU Research Week to both highlight the BIRCWH and WRHR programs and their roles within the OHSU community, but also to give greater visibility to women’s health and sex/gender differences research on the OHSU campus.

Conference program will be available soon.

View a recording of last year's 2023 conference

We are excited to be a part of OHSU Research Week this year. Please visit the Research Week website for information about submitting abstracts for the oral and poster presentation sessions at our event. 

Follow us on Twitter! @OregonBIRCWH

Announcements and updates

Headshot for Dr. Zhenzhen Zhang

Congratulations to Dr. Zhenzhen Zhang on the selection of her BIRCWH funded project paper “Association between Gut Microbiota and Breast Cancer: Diet as a Potential Modulating Factor” published in Nutrients as the School of Medicine’s Paper of the Month. The study was led by a team including first author Duygu Altinok Dindar, MD, PhD, postdoctoral scholar, CEDAR, and senior author Zhenzhen Zhang, PhD, MPH, MMed, assistant professor, Division of Oncological Sciences, OHSU School of Medicine, and member of the Knight Cancer Institute.

Learn more about Dr. Zhang's paper on key findings about the gut microbiome, lifestyle factors, and breast cancer risk

Photo: Left to right: Windy Alonso (University of Nebraska), Julie Bidwell (University of California Davis), Quin Denfeld, and Shelli Feder (Yale) at the AHA awards ceremony.
Photo: Left to right: Windy Alonso (University of Nebraska), Julie Bidwell (University of California Davis), Quin Denfeld, and Shelli Feder (Yale) at the AHA awards ceremony.

Congratulations to Dr. Quin Denfeld, recipient of the Marie Cowan Promising Early Career Investigator Award by the American Heart Association’s Council on Cardiovascular and Stroke Nursing. The award is given to a junior investigator (5-10 years post-terminal degree) each year who demonstrates the scientific excellence and spirit of innovation exemplified by Dr. Marie Cowan’s work.

Dr. Denfeld received the award at the organization’s 2023 Scientific Sessions. She submitted her publication on candidate biomarkers of physical frailty in heart failure (funded by the BIRCWH) that was published in the February 2023 issue of the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing. Co-authors include BIRCWH alum Dr. Christopher Lee and current BIRCWH Scholar Dr. Mary Roberts Davis.

You can access the paper here and learn about Dr. Denfeld's lab here. Read more about this award on OHSU Now

Events

2024 Northwest Women's Health and Sex/Gender Differences Research Conference, May 8, 2024 @ OHSU Auditorium

BIRCWH & WRHR joint peer-to-peer meetings (virtual) - occur every other Friday from 1:00-2:30 p.m.