image: Surendra Sharma, M.D., Ph.D., a research scientist and professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island and The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, was recently presented with the Distinguished Service Award at the 34th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Immunology (ASRI). view more
Credit: Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island
Surendra Sharma, MD, PhD, a research scientist and professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island and The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, was recently presented with the Distinguished Service Award at the 34th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Immunology (ASRI). This award is given to a member of the ASRI who has provided distinguished service to advance the goals and mission of the society.
Founded in 1981, the American Society for Reproductive Immunology fosters the development of reproductive immunology research, increases intellectual exchange between clinical and basic branches of reproductive immunology, and provides mentoring for new scientists interested in reproductive immunology.
Dr. Sharma's career has spanned three decades. His laboratory has a multifaceted research program focused on trying to answer the question of why some women have babies that are born too soon as well as why some women have problems with their pregnancy, such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes.
"We believe that these problems may originate from abnormal immune responses during the pregnancy, but we would like to know how the immune system changes during normal and adverse pregnancy outcomes," said Dr. Sharma. "Some pregnancy-associated complications are diagnosed after 20 weeks of gestation. However, the onset of the related pathology probably occurs much earlier in pregnancy, which may have its origin in unregulated immune responses, protein structures, and vascular activities. These changes, if detected early in pregnancy, may be able to help predict who will develop the disease."
About Women & Infants Hospital
Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, a Care New England hospital, is one of the nation's leading specialty hospitals for women and newborns. A major teaching affiliate of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University for obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics, as well as a number of specialized programs in women's medicine, Women & Infants is the eighth largest stand-alone obstetrical service in the country with nearly 8,400 deliveries per year. A U.S.News 2014-15 Best Children's Hospital in Neonatology, in 2009, Women & Infants opened the country's largest, single-family room neonatal intensive care unit.
New England's premier hospital for women and newborns, Women & Infants and Brown offer fellowship programs in gynecologic oncology, maternal-fetal medicine, urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery, neonatal-perinatal medicine, pediatric and perinatal pathology, gynecologic pathology and cytopathology, and reproductive endocrinology and infertility. It is home to the nation's only mother-baby perinatal psychiatric partial hospital, as well as the nation's only fellowship program in obstetric medicine.
Women & Infants has been designated as a Breast Center of Excellence from the American College of Radiography; a Center of Excellence in Minimally Invasive Gynecology; a Center for In Vitro Maturation Excellence by SAGE In Vitro Fertilization; a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence by the National Institutes of Health; and a Neonatal Resource Services Center of Excellence. It is one of the largest and most prestigious research facilities in high risk and normal obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics in the nation, and is a member of the National Cancer Institute's Gynecologic Oncology Group and the National Institutes of Health's Pelvic Floor Disorders Network.