New and Noteworthy
Newsletter Summer 2020
New and Noteworthy: UCLA faculty who have been recognized for excellence in clinical care, research and teaching
Yalda Afshar, MD, PhD, UCLA OBGYN assistant professor in-residence, was awarded funding from the NIH/NICHD Reproductive Scientists Development Program for her study "Maternal-fetal Hemodynamics and Genetic Modifiers of Single-ventricle Congenital Heart Disease." She also received grants from the Gates Foundation and the CDC Foundation for work on COVID-19 and Pregnancy and the PRIORITY registry, as well as an Iris Cantor - UCLA Women’s Health Center pilot award.
Joshua Cohen, MD, UCLA OBGYN health sciences assistant clinical professor, was named the UCLA DGSOM Gynecologic Oncology Fellowship Program Director.
Daniel Dumesic, MD, UCLA OBGYN professor, was notified by the Endocrine Society that his paper “Adipose Insulin Resistance in Normal-Weight Women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome” previously published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism was one of the top 10 percent of articles published in the journal in 2018-2019, as assessed by rate of citation.
Tamara Grisales, MD, UCLA OBGYN health sciences assistant clinical professor, Leena Nathan, MD, UCLA OBGYN assistant clinical professor – voluntary, and Dr. Yalda Afshar, have been selected as Fellows for the 2020-21 UCLA Biodesign Program - Accelerated Track. This program provides participants a process for identifying, assessing and de-risking meaningful health care technology opportunities through workshops with peers and medical technology industry mentors. Drs. Nathan and Grisales, in collaboration with Dr. Song Li, department chair of UCLA Bioengineering, are working together to create a novel device to deliver vaginal medications. Dr. Afshar is focused on optimizing the placental circuit (the feto-placental unit) in-vivo and in-vitro with an emphasis on the interaction of environmental influences on genetic modifiers in maternal and fetal congenital heart disease through multidisciplinary collaborations to answer clinically relevant questions.
Christina Jung, MD, family planning fellow, was awarded funding from the Society of Family Planning for a qualitative study of womens’ experiences with delays in abortion care in California.
Beth Karlan, MD, professor and vice chair of women’s health research has been appointed to the National Academies’ National Cancer Policy Forum and named as chair of the National Academy of Medicine’s interest group on Maternal and Child Health and Human Development.
Aparna Sridhar, MD, UCLA OBGYN health sciences associate clinical professor and director of marketing and innovations, was an invited speaker at the All India Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AICOG) where she also conducted a workshop in first trimester ultrasound basics with an ACOG and GE partnership.
Mae Zakhour, MD, UCLA OBGYN Health Sciences Assistant Clinical Professor, is a co-author on the manuscript “Expression of stromal progesterone receptor and differential methylation patterns in the endometrium may correlate with response to progesterone therapy in endometrial complex atypical hyperplasia” published in the journal Reproductive Sciences.
Christine Han, MD, Director, Maternal-Fetal Medicine Fellowship Program has been named as a COVID-19 Task Force Member for the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.