Endocrine Insider
September 13, 2007

Teresa K. Woodruff, PhD, is the overall principal investigator of one of nine grants under the new NIH Roadmap Interdisciplinary Research Consortia program. The program, launched by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) this year, is designed to bring together scientists from several disciplines to work together on a single problem with a unified approach, thereby revolutionizing the way biomedical research is executed. Dr. Lawrence Tabak, the Director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research—who co-chaired a working group that helped identify the best interdisciplinary science that should be funded—described the new consortia in this way:

The Roadmap Interdisciplinary Research Consortia have been designed to enable the conduct of the biomedical and behavioral research of the future—multiple NIH Institutes and Centers supporting multiple investigators with different scientific backgrounds, often from different institutions—all of whom are coming together to perform research on complex, real-life problems.

Dr. Woodruff leads The Oncofertility Consortium: Fertility Preservation for Women, and the application abstract describes its purpose as follows:

The purpose of this Interdisciplinary Research Consortium grant application is to focus on the fertility threat posed by cancer treatment and to serve as an authoritative voice for research, clinical practice, and training that will happen at the intersection of oncology, pediatrics, reproductive science and medicine, biomechanics, materials science, mathematics, social science, bioethics, religion, policy research, reproductive health law, cognitive and learning science in a new discipline called ONCOFERTILITY.

Dr. Woodruff has been an active member of The Endocrine Society since 1991 and has filled many scientific leadership positions over the years, including serving on the editorial board of each of the Society’s journals and acting as basic science chair of the Annual Meeting Steering Committee.

The consortia will be funded at a level of $210 million over 5 years. The overall principal investigator of each consortium is responsible for coordinating the efforts of the individual grant components.

The NIH press release announcing the Interdisciplinary Research Consortia provides more information about the program.

To view detailed information about the nine new consortia click here.