Leann Birch, PhD (Core Leader): Department of Human Development and Family Studies, College of Health and Human Development
Dr. Birch is a psychologist and Distinguished Professor of Human Development and Family Studies. Her current NIH-funded project focuses on issues related to women's health, especially on the development of eating behavior and problems of energy balance during childhood and adolescence. “Early Dieting in Girls” is a prospective study of the individual and family factors involved in the emergence of dieting, obesity, weight concerns, and disordered eating among girls ages 5 to 15 years.

Rebecca L. Corwin, PhD Department of Nutritional Sciences, College of Health and Human Development
Dr. Corwin is an Associate Professor of Nutritional Neuroscience. She has developed a rat behavioral model of binge-type eating in order to study the neurobiological underpinnings of intermittent excessive behavior, particularly involving food intake. Her research experience over 25 years has used animal models to examine physiological and neurological mechanisms relevant to ingestive behavior and drug abuse. Her current funded research relevant to this core is RO1 MH67943-01 entitled “Neurobiology of Binge-type Behavior”. This project includes research in which the effects of ovarian hormones on binge-type consumption of food will be assessed, with particular emphasis upon the role of GABA-B receptors in these effects.

Robert Gabbay, MD, PhD Department of Medicine, College of Medicine
Dr. Gabbay is an endocrinologist, Co-Director of The Penn State Diabetes Center and Associate Professor of Medicine at The Penn State College of Medicine.  His primary research interest is improving diabetes care for those who are not attaining appropriate goals.   His current funded research from the NIH is the DYNAMIC Study (Diabetes Nurse Case Management and Motivational Interviewing for Change) -  a randomized controlled trial evaluating the efficacy of nurse case managers trained in motivational interviewing, basic diabetes self-management education, and clinical guidelines to improve diabetes co-morbidities.  This study includes approximately 1000 patients (half of which will be women) in nine primary care clinics including three underserved Hispanic clinical centers.  BIRCWH scholars will have an opportunity to evaluate gender-based differences in outcomes.  Dr. Gabbay also leads the effort of the Penn State Diabetes Center Registry—a web-based, secure registry that contains clinical information on over 10,000 patients with diabetes in Central Pennsylvania.  This clinical tool also serves as a potent recruitment tool for clinical trials.  Collaborations with Reading Hospital with a primarily Hispanic population provide an opportunity for evaluation of health disparities in the Hispanic population.  Opportunities exist to evaluate gender differences in care within the large diabetes population in Central Pennsylvania and also to collaborate with numerous other investigators within the institution on diabetes-related projects.

Duanping Liao, MD, PhD Department of Public Health Sciences, College of Medicine
Dr. Liao’s research interests encompass the etiology of atherosclerotic heart disease, complications of type 2 diabetes/insulin resistance/metabolic syndrome and obesity.  He has carried out research projects and published extensively on the impacts of metabolic syndrome and its related abnormalities on subclinical cardiovascular disease, including atherosclerosis, arterial stiffness, cardiac autonomic control, and subclinical cerebral vascular disease.  Dr. Liao is the PI of a population-based cohort study relating metabolic syndrome and the development of clinical cardiovascular disease.  In this project, one of the major objectives is to investigate gender differences in the impact of metabolic syndrome, and to identify the metabolic syndrome clusters that have the highest risk for the development of clinical cardiovascular events, especially in women. Another research area is environmental pollution on cardiovascular disease. Dr. Liao is a leading investigator in a NIH funded project “The Environmental Epidemiology of Arrythmogenesis in WHI”.  This five-year project investigates air pollution and arrhythmogenesis in post-menopausal women.  Its objectives include whether acute, proarrhythmic effects of exposure to ambient air pollutants are modified by metabolic syndrome, neighborhood environmental and socioeconomic context, chronic exposure, and disease-specific susceptibility factors.  The study population is an ethnically diverse population of 68,133 post-menopausal women aged 59-70 years from the 40 clinical centers and their satellites participating in the Women’s Health Initiative Clinical Trial. 

Barbara J. Rolls, PhD Director, Laboratory for the Study of Human Ingestive Behavior
Helen A. Guthrie Chair in Nutrition; Professor of Nutritional Sciences; Professor of Biobehavioral Health; Faculty member in the Intercollege Graduate Program in Physiology; Faculty member in the Integrative Biosciences Graduate Program; Professor of Neural and Behavioral Sciences, College of Medicine. Dr. Rolls principal research interest is dietary influences on energy intake, hunger, and satiety and weight management. Her research is funded primarily by NIDDK. In her MERIT award she has studied how the macronutrient composition and energy density (kcal/gram) of foods affects satiety. In a year-long clinical trial in obese women, she found that advising them to reduce the energy density of the diet by lowering fat intake and by increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables was associated with significant weight loss, reduced hunger and improved diet quality. The research funded by her other NIDDK grant has shown that large portions of energy-dense foods increase energy intake over periods of up to 11 days. In her studies, she compares responses of women and men to determine whether there are sex differences in eating behavior. These findings suggest nutritionally sound dietary strategies for weight management.

Richard S. Legro, MD (Core Leader): Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, College of Medicine
Dr. Legro is an obstetrician-gynecologist with subspecialist training in reproductive endocrinology and the director of the Meharry-Penn State U54 Reproductive Center, described earlier.  His clinical research focuses primarily on polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the most common endocrinopathy in women (about 5-10% are affected), which consists of unexplained chronic anovulation and androgen excess.  Most women also have metabolic abnormalities including insulin resistance and dyslipidemia.  He is interested in understanding the pathophysiology of PCOS, the genetic underpinnings, and above all validating clinical interventions to improve outcomes.  His research is looking at the effects of various treatments, including lifestyle and pharmaceutical, that improve insulin sensitivity on the PCOS phenotype, as well as other insulin resistant groups.  These trials range from small pilot studies to large multi-center trials. He is the lead investigator of the recently completed Pregnancy in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PPCOS) recently completed by the U10 Reproductive Medicine Network, which examined the efficacy of clomiphene citrate and metformin on live birth. Several family studies are now investigating the heritability of abnormalities in sisters and brothers of women with PCOS as well as their children. He also is interested in the reproductive and metabolic changes induced by oral contraception in this group and the treatment of dysmenorrhea.

Elizabeth J. Susman, PhD Department of Biobehavioral Health, College of Health and Human Development
Dr. Susman is the Jean Phillips Shibley Professor of Biobehavioral Health.  Her research program integrates behavioral endocrinology and developmental psychology with an emphasis on sex differences. The research is based on theories that consider sexual dimorphisms and the integration of biological, psychological and contextual aspects of development during biological transitions, specifically, puberty, and life transitions. An important component of the research is considering the dynamic bidirectional influences between developing neurobiological systems and experiences during childhood and behavior problems.  Dr. Susman’s longitudinal studies have focused on changes in adrenal and gonadal hormones and growth during puberty and cognition, emotions and antisocial behavior in boys and girls.  Dr. Susman and colleagues also have conducted a clinical trial on sex hormone replacement therapy and aggression and cognition in delayed puberty adolescents. These studies also consider sex differences in reactivity to stress, corticotropin releasing hormone and cortisol, and circadian rhythms in cortisol and antisocial behavior.  A recent emphasis is endocrine and sympathetic nervous system sex differences in reactivity to stressors and obesity in children and youth.

George P. Vogler, PhD Department of Biobehavioral Health and Center for Developmental and Health Genetics, College of Health and Human Development
Dr. Vogler is a genetic epidemiologist who is Professor of Biobehavioral Health and Director of the Center for Developmental and Health Genetics in the College of Health and Human Development at University Park.  His research is in the genetic epidemiology of complex developmental traits.  His methodological interests are in statistical models of multifactorial traits that result from the influence of numerous factors, both genetic and environmental in origin.  With recent advances in the ability to identify and measure allelic variation among the relevant genes, the opportunity arises to consider models of gene-environment interaction that had previously not been possible in human studies.  Applied areas of his research use such models to investigate complex developmental phenomena from an integrated genetic epidemiologic perspective, including health and functional outcomes in aging, risk factors for chronic disease including cardiovascular risk factors, obesity, and diabetes and their relationship to other health and cognitive outcomes, and development of cognitive abilities in children.

Carol S. Weisman, PhD Departments of Public Health Sciences, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and Health Policy & Administration, College of Medicine
Dr. Weisman is a sociologist, Chief of the Division of Health Services Research, and Director of the Central Pennsylvania Center of Excellence for Research on Pregnancy Outcomes at the College of Medicine, described earlier.  Her principal research interest is women’s health.  Her research experience over 30 years includes population-based, organizational, and clinical research, and she has particular expertise in women’s health surveys and in the development of survey measures.  Her current funded research relevant to this core is the Central Pennsylvania Women’s Health Study (CePAWHS), described earlier.  CePAWHS focuses on women’s preconceptional and interconceptional health in relation to overall health status and pregnancy outcomes and provides a unique population-based data set of 2,600 women of reproductive age in Central Pennsylvania, which will be available for PSU-BIRCWH scholars.  Using birth registry data from Pennsylvania and survey data from the CePAWHS cohort study, Dr. Weisman is investigating disparities in women’s access to and use of health services, including reproductive and general services, along the rural-urban continuum; the influence of community-level and individual-level variables on indicators of women’s reproductive health; the relationship of pregnancy intent to outcomes using longitudinal data; and the development of a risk index for preterm birth.

Nancy I. Williams, ScD Kinesiology, College of Health and Human Development; Intercollege Program in Physiology
The focus of Dr. Williams’ work in the Exercise Endocrinology and Metabolism Laboratory is the study of the modulation of reproductive function via alterations in energy balance.  The overall goal is to increase understanding of the mechanisms whereby the metabolic status of the body is communicated to the centers that control the reproductive axis during conditions of chronic energy deficiency and/or energy surplus.  A secondary goal is to improve our ability to predict an individual’s risk of experiencing alterations in levels of circulating reproductive hormones, primarily circulating estrogens, by assessing the contributions of other factors that influence one’s susceptibility to disturbances in reproductive function, including gynecological maturity, perception of stress, and inherent endocrine robustness.  The clinical applications of this work relate to infertility, bone health, reproductive cancers, and physical performance.  Recently, two randomized clinical trials examining the impact of increased exercise combined with caloric restriction on reproductive function and circulating biomarkers for breast cancer in premenopausal women have been completed.  Scholars would gain an understanding of the physiological mechanisms underlying the relationship between energy balance and reproductive function and training in methodological techniques and experimental strategies to assess reproductive function and quantify and manipulate energy balance.

Sheri Berenbaum, PhD (Core Leader):  Departments of Psychology and Pediatrics, College of Liberal Arts
Dr. Berenbaum is a psychologist whose research addresses the development of normal variation in human social behavior and cognition, with a focus on neuroendocrine and genetic influences.  She is particularly interested in the development of gender-related behavior, including the development of gender identity (a person’s sense of self as male or female), sex-related personality and social behaviors (e.g., toy play, activity interests, emotional response, aggression), sex-related cognitive abilities (e.g., spatial ability, verbal memory), and sexual orientation. Her current studies are focused on understanding more about the nature and mechanisms (neural and psychological) of hormonal influences on behavior, and the ways in which these effects are modified by the social environment. This work is also relevant to current controversies in pediatric medicine regarding management of children with CAH and other disorders of sexual differentiation.

Karen Bierman, PhD Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts
Karen L. Bierman, Ph.D., is distinguished professor of child-clinical psychology at The Pennsylvania State University.  Her research focuses on processes of social-emotional development, with a particular emphasis on assessing and promoting social competence and school adjustment among at-risk students. Over the past 25 years, she has directed several large, federally-funded, randomized prevention trials. Currently, she is P.I. for the Pennsylvania site of the Fast Track Program, a national multi-site prevention trial focused on preventing antisocial behavior among high-risk youth funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (with additional funding by the National Institute of Drug Abuse and the U.S. Department of Education). Dr. Bierman is particularly interested in the implications of developmental research for the design of school- and community-based prevention programs, and in the evaluation and diffusion of empirically-based prevention programs that enhance school readiness, social-emotional competence, and reduce problem behaviors.  In recent years, she has also served as the director of the Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) and the Children, Youth, and Families Consortium (CYFC) at Penn State.

Elana Farace, PhD Departments of Neurosurgery and Public Health Sciences, College of Medicine
Dr. Farace is a quantitative and clinical neuropsychologist with a specialty in gender differences in brain-behavior relationships and quality of life in traumatic brain injury and in cancer.  Dr. Farace is a clinician-scientist, Director of Clinical Research for the Department of Neurosurgery, and the Program Leader for the developing program on Cancer Survivorship for the Penn State Cancer Institute.  Dr. Farace is also the attending neuropsychologist in the Department of Neurosurgery and over the past year performed more than 200 neuropsychological assessments of patients with brain injury.  Dr. Farace studies gender differences in intelligence and the brain. Her research on gender differences in outcome following traumatic brain injury shows that women fare worse than do men.  Scholars working with Dr. Farace will have access to a variety of neurosurgical, neurological, and cancer patient populations in regards to gender differences in outcomes.

Susan McHale, PhD Department of Human Development and Family Studies, College of Health and Human Development
Dr. McHale’s research focuses on children's and adolescents' family relationships, roles and everyday activities and the extent to which these are gendered.  Highlighted in her work are sibling relationship dynamics and the family experiences that foster similarities and differences in the interests, attributes and developmental trajectories of sisters and brothers.  Her early research on children’s and adolescents’ family experiences pointed to the significance of gender dynamics in everyday family life and served as a basis for her interest in the family as a context for gender socialization.  The extent to which sisters versus brothers assume different family roles, experience different kinds of relationships with their parents, and have access to different kinds of resources and opportunities are important ways in which families differ.  She studies the ways in which such family dynamics are linked to  girls’ and boys’ well-being and development.  A body of research has uncovered sex differences in a range of adjustment problems in childhood and adolescence, with problems such as depression and weight concerns more common in girls and risky behaviors and conduct problems more common in boys.  Findings such as these suggest that the study of gender socialization in the family may be central to an understanding of child and adolescent mental health and adjustment.

Lawrence I. Sinoway, MD Department of Medicine (Cardiology), College of Medicine
Dr. Sinoway is a cardiologist with a principal interest in neural control of circulation.  His specific area of interest is the neurocirculatory regulation during exercise in normal subjects and in those with pathophysiologic conditions.  He is currently principal investigator of two NIH funded studies, one of which is investigating muscle reflex control of the circulationand the second is to study interstitial norepinephrine and exercise.  Dr. Sinoway is also program director and a project leader of a Program Project Grant (PPG) to study autonomic neurovascular regulation.  Dr. Sinoway’s ongoing studies would provide a PSU-BIRCWH scholar with an exciting opportunity to investigate gender differences in muscle reflex response to exercise and vascular control, or to investigate the effects of factors specific to women, such as variation in hormones across the menstrual cycle, on vascular control, muscle reflex response or neurocirculatory regulation.  In addition, as one of Penn State’s leading cardiologists and program director of the Penn State GCRC, Dr. Sinoway will mentor scholars interested in more global issues related to cardiovascular health including the study of sex differences in age of onset, symptom pattern at onset and risk factors for cardiovascular disease or gender differences in quality of care received as treatment for cardiovascular disease.

Joshua Muscat, PhD (Core Leader) Department of Public Health Sciences, College of Medicine
Dr. Muscat is an epidemiologist and member of the Penn State Cancer Institute.  His principal research interest is in cancer etiology, and he has spent much of his career focusing on women’s cancer including breast and ovarian cancer. His research experience encompasses almost two decades of clinical studies on environmental and dietary factors related to the risk and progression of malignancies. His current funded research relevant to this core are ongoing studies of genetic factors that differentially affect the risk of lung cancer in women. He has identified specific genes that predispose women to increased susceptibility to tobacco smoke carcinogens. His ongoing work is examining whether biomarkers of tobacco smoke are greater in women than in men and whether this has adverse health consequences. Dr. Muscat is also actively involved in the area of environmental and lifestyle factors in women’s cancer. His active research is exploring the effects of cosmetic grade talcum powders and their relationship with ovarian cancer, and he has published in the area of environmental organochlorine compounds, their biological concentrations in blood and breast tissue, and their effects on breast cancer risk and progression.

Neil Christensen, PhD Department of Pathology, College of Medicine
Dr. Christensen is an immunologist whose research focuses on the papillomavirus. The overall research theme in Dr.Christensen’s laboratory is studies on immunity and pathogenesis of papillomavirus infections. Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection causes hyperproliferative lesions in cutaneous and mucosal epithelium. A proportion of these HPV infections have been shown to progress to malignancies of the uterine cervix. The major subprojects include: 1) characterization of viral capsid neutralizing epitopes; 2) vaccine development; 3) analysis of T-cell recognition of viral epitopes on virus-infected papilloma cells; 4) papillomavirus animal model systems; 5) model systems to test for anti-viral compounds, and 6) methods to propagate human papillomaviruses. Current goals are to test both protective and prophylactic vaccines using animal models of papillomavirus infections. Current studies include identification of host receptor molecules involved in papillomavirus uptake and internalization, and the development of a transgenic animal model to study the role of HLA Class I in papillomavirus immunity.

Karam El-Bayoumy, PhD Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Medicine
The overall research direction in Dr. El-Bayoumy’s laboratory focuses on the elucidation of causes for some of the major cancers in the United States, as well as the development of their prevention. Current studies are aimed at elucidating mechanisms that account for cancer induction in lung, oral, and breast tissues in preclinical model systems.  In collaboration with national and internationally recognized laboratories, additional studies are aimed at understanding the role of tobacco carcinogenesis in the development of pancreatic cancer and in combination with HPV in the development of oral and cervical cancers.  The identification of molecular and biochemical pathways by which normal cells progress to the first definable stage of cancer is a requisite component in the development of appropriate strategies for cancer chemoprevention in future clinical invention trials; therefore, a key area of chemical carcinogenesis research is directed toward the development of both natural and synthetic mechanisms-based novel chemopreventive agents that can interfere at several stages during the multi-step carcinogenesis process.  Furthermore, the effect of chemoprevention agents in combination with dietary manipulation remains an active area of research in his laboratory.

Philip Lazarus, PhD Pharmacology and Penn State Cancer Institute, College of Medicine
Dr. Lazarus is Associate Director of the Penn State Cancer Institute and Chief of its Division of Population Sciences and Cancer Prevention.  His expertise is in molecular epidemiology, carcinogenic mechanisms, hormone metabolism, and cancer risk.  His research examines the relationship between genetic variants in xenobiotic-metabolizing enzymes and cancer risk.  He conducts a wide variety of pharmacogenetic studies exploring variation by genetic and environmental factors in the metabolism of carcinogens with special emphasis on their glucuronidation pathways.  He has been investigating sex differences in nicotine metabolism. Understanding sex/gender and race/ethnic differences in these pathways could help to develop more specific and efficacious approaches to smoking prevention and cessation.  His work has led to studies of genetic factors involved in risk for breast and endometrial cancer and to his involvement in ongoing breast cancer case-control studies.

Eugene Lengerich, VMD, MS Public Health Sciences, College of Medicine
Dr. Lengerich’s research includes cancer epidemiology; development and testing of methods to assess the geographic distribution of disease and cancer risk; racial/ethnic and geographic cancer health disparities; and community-based participatory research.  He is principal investigator of the Northern Appalachia Cancer Network, a region of the Appalachia Community Cancer Network which is funded by NCI’s Center to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities.  The goal of NACN is to measurably reduce cancer health disparities among rural and medically underserved communities in Pennsylvania and New York through education, research, and training.  The primary efforts of the NACN have been to develop and implement community- and evidence-based methods to reduce breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer.  He also is principal investigator on research funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Association of Medical Colleges to develop and test methods to increase effective use of cancer maps and other visual displays of data by policy makers and program managers.  He co-chairs the Early Detection and Screening committee of the Pennsylvania Cancer Control Consortium.

Kathleen M. Mulder, PhD Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine
The major objective of the research in Dr. Mulder’s laboratory is to identify alterations in TGFb signaling pathways that contribute to tumor formation or progression in ovarian, colon, and breast cancer models.  Specific TGFb signaling components are being investigated as critical therapeutic targets for the restoration of negative growth control by TGFb to solid tumors.  In addition, her lab is defining which TGFb signaling pathways lead to the growth inhibitory effects in epithelial cells and which lead to the tumor-enhancing effects of TGFb in vivo.  Selective targeting of these signaling pathways is being evaluated to determine the effects of TGFb-based therapeutics on tumor formation or progression in vivo.  As an example, one of the critical intracellular targets that she has identified, km23, is altered in 42% of ovarian cancer patient tissues.  She is investigating how these alterations affect TGFß signaling and cancer development and progression.