Women's Health COBRE | Leveraging Big Data to Improve Women's Health

The Women's Health CoBRE BD-WH is an NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence focused on leveraging Big Data to mitigate health inequality for women.

Apply Now - RPL Funding Opportunity

Internal Competition for Major Research Funding: $140K/yr for 2 yrs.

KU’s NIH-funded Women’s Health CoBRE BD-WH is looking for 3-5 Research Project Leaders (RPLs). Selected KU faculty will receive approximately $140K/year in direct costs in research funding for two years to complete a project aligned with the Center’s theme. In addition to research funding, RPLs will receive a paid mentor, professional development support, and training in writing successful grant applications. Research Project Leaders are expected to submit a major NIH grant application (ex: R01 or R35) before the completion of their second year of funding. Follow this link for more information about applying.

What We Do

By funding research projects, supporting faculty, improving lab facilities and boosting collaboration across scholarly fields, the center will harness complex datasets to tackle biomedical issues vital to women. The leading collaborators at KU come from a range of laboratory sciences as well as behavioral and social sciences. The COBRE BD-WH integrates a Data Set Core led by Donna Ginther, five research projects and multiple pilot projects, led by KU faculty from various scientific disciplines, to leverage large biomedical datasets for advancing women's health research.

Featured News for COBRE BD-WH

Tera Fazzino received R01 from NIH

We are excited to share Tera Fazzino has been awarded the first NIH R01 for KU in 2026! Tera completed her Faculty Fellow pilot project with the Women's Health CoBRE BD-WH at the end of 2025.

Brain scans highlighting areas (in red and green) where women who started menopause at an older age tended to have a thicker outer layer of the brain, known as the cortex.

Study finds estrogen-based hormone therapies could protect brain health in older women

Researchers from the University of Kansas discovered older women who had used hormonal birth control in young adulthood were more likely to have larger volumes in brain regions vital to memory, cognition and information processing.

January 2026 Sutton Family Research Impact Award Winner, Assistant Professor Meredith Hartley

The Department of Chemistry congratulates Assistant Professor Meredith Hartley on receiving the January 2026 Sutton Family Research Impact Award! ...

A photo of a woman's hand pulling the book "Swiftynomics" from a handbag.

'Swiftynomics' by Misty Heggeness explores how women power, redefine economy

A new book from KU researcher Misty Heggeness titled "Swiftynomics: How Women Mastermind and Redefine Our Economy” pairs rigorous data with humor, personal anecdotes and Taylor Swift song titles as chapter subheadings to tell the story of women who have survived and thrived in overlooked ways. It also shares policy prescriptions for a more sustainable workforce.

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Research reported in this website is supported by an Institutional Development Award (IDeA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and Office of the Director (OD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under Award Number P20GM152280. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Please contact the Women's Health CoBRE program manager about citing P20GM152280 in any publication that may have incorporated data generated from CoBRE supported research projects or cores. Research including any author or coauthor with an affiliation outside the United States is not allowed on CoBRE supported publications.