Emory Specialized Center of Research Excellence (SCORE) on Sex Differences

埃默里评分的首要目标是通过提高妇女健康研究的质量 埃默里大学丰富、协作和跨学科的研究环境，以发展NIH和其他 医疗外资助的妇女健康研究。长期的愿景是在埃默里大学开发一个项目， 是研究生物性别对传染病结果的影响的区域中心 并促进将性作为生物变量在研究中正常化，目的是改善 妇女健康。这些目标将通过a)实施3个交叉研究项目来实现 以“HIV-宿主病原体相互作用”为模型探讨性别对病理的影响 和传染病的发病机制；b)建立领导行政核心(LAC)；c) 建立职业提升核心(CEC)以促进初级调查员在以下领域工作的职业生涯 妇女健康研究；和d)生物统计资源核心(BRC)，以优化所有分数的严谨性- 受资助的研究。我们对传染病的关注突出了这些疾病在以下方面的全球负担 妇女，与国立卫生研究院妇女健康研究办公室(OWHR)的优先事项一致，并利用 埃默里在艾滋病毒翻译研究、基础免疫学和抗病毒药物开发方面的研究优势。 这三个研究项目将探索艾滋病毒诱导的免疫激活和慢性疾病之间的协同作用 HIV感染老年妇女的炎症和雌激素不敏感引起的炎症。在 神经下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺(HPA)轴项目1(Neigh&Michop oulos博士)，我们推测 艾滋病毒与多种因素相互作用，包括应激暴露以降低全身雌激素水平和 下调雌激素受体的细胞表达，从而形成相对雌激素不足状态 因此，艾滋病毒携带者的慢性炎症加剧(WLH)。使用基础动物 模型和转化性临床研究，肌肉骨骼项目2(Weitzmann&Ofotokun博士)将 检验以下假设：在世界卫生组织中观察到的骨折风险增加是由于 HIV/抗逆转录病毒疗法(ART)引起的炎症和雌激素缺乏引起的炎症 用艺术。心血管项目3(Quyyumi&Shaw博士)的目标将是评估合并的 项目1和项目2中描述的艾滋病毒和雌激素状态对心血管健康的免疫影响 通过内源性修复/再生能力(循环祖细胞)和发育/ 白斑狼疮患者亚临床冠状动脉(CT血管造影)和颈动脉(MRI)动脉粥样硬化进展 与HIV阴性对照比较。这三个项目都将对同一批感染艾滋病毒的妇女进行检查。 和HIV阴性对照，预期从NIH资助的亚特兰大WIHS的积极参与者中招募。

The overarching goal of the Emory SCORE is to advance the quality of women's health research by leveraging the rich, collaborative and interdisciplinary research environment at Emory University to grow NIH and other extramurally funded research in women's health. The long-term vision is to develop a program at Emory that serves as a regional hub for studying the influence of biological sex on the outcomes of infectious diseases and for promoting the normalization of sex as a biological variable in research with the goal of improving women's health. These goals will be met through a) the implementation of 3 cross-cutting Research Projects employing the “HIV-host pathogen interaction” as a model for probing the influence of sex on the pathology and pathogenesis of infectious diseases; b) the development of a Leadership Administrative Core (LAC); c) the establishment of a Career Enhancement Core (CEC) to foster the career of junior investigators working in women's health research; and d) a Biostatistics Resource Core (BRC) to optimize the rigor of all SCORE- supported research. Our focus on infectious diseases highlights the global burden of these conditions in women, aligns with the priorities of the NIH Office of Women's Health Research (OWHR), and capitalizes on Emory's research strengths in HIV translational research, basic immunology, and anti-viral drug development. The three Research Projects will explore the synergy between HIV induced immune activation and chronic inflammation and that induced by estrogen insensitivity observed in women aging with HIV infection. In the Neuro hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis Project 1 (Drs. Neigh & Michopoulos), we speculate that HIV interacts with multiple factors including stress exposure to decrease systemic estrogen levels and down regulate cellular expressions of estrogen receptors thereby creating relative estrogen insufficiency state with consequent heightening of chronic inflammation in women living with HIV (WLH). Using basic animal models and translational clinical studies, the Musculoskeletal Project 2 (Drs. Weitzmann & Ofotokun) will test the hypothesizes that enhanced fracture risk observed in WLH is due to the collision between HIV/antiretroviral therapy (ART) induced inflammation and that induced by estrogen insufficiency as WLH age with ART. The goal of the Cardiovascular Project 3 (Drs. Quyyumi & Shaw) will be to assess the combined immune effects of HIV and estrogen status described in Project 1 & Project 2 on cardiovascular health as assessed by endogenous reparative/regenerative capacity (circulating progenitor cells) and the development/ progression of sub-clinical coronary (CT angiography) and carotid artery (MRI) atherosclerosis in WLH compared with HIV negative controls. All three projects will examine the same cohort of HIV infected women and HIV negative controls prospectively recruited from active participants at the NIH funded Atlanta WIHS.