Research Project (2023–2025): The Effect of Hormones on Cellular Aging and Concurrent Illnesses in Women Living With HIV
Dr. Monika Kowatsch earned her PhD in Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases from the University of Manitoba in 2023. Her research interests are two-fold. First, to work hand in hand with community partners to improve patient care and outcomes, and second, to utilize “big data” approaches to understand the relationships between the immune system, social-demographics, and health outcomes.
Dr. Kowatsch’s CTN project will focus on how HIV and hormones affect healthy aging in women living with HIV (WLWH). Her work will be conducted with the British Columbia CARMA-CHIWOS Collaboration (BCC3), a cohort study of WLWH and control HIV-negative women that takes a holistic cell-to-society approach to address questions on healthy aging. Her project hopes to improve quality of life for WLWH through uncovering why WLWH in Canada live on average 10 years less than women without HIV in Canada, and develop more concurrent conditions including heart disease and a reduction in bone mineral density.
Sex hormones have been shown to be unusually low in WLWH, perhaps due to HIV itself, its treatment, or other factors. Importantly, sex hormones regulate many body processes including immune function, inflammation, and cellular aging. However, the link between HIV, hormones, cellular aging, and inflammation remains largely unexplored. Therefore, the goal of this project will be to determine how three key hormones associated with age-related illnesses in women – estradiol, estrone, and testosterone – are linked to markers of cellular aging, immune cell ability to respond to hormones, and markers of inflammation. Her project will help understand the biological impacts of altered hormones in WLWH and inform potential avenues to improve care for WLWH.
Prior to her PhD, Dr. Kowatsch obtained her BSc in Microbiology from the University of Manitoba. She has received a number of honours and awards including a CIHR Doctoral Award and the Infectious Disease Knowledge Translation Award from the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCCID) and the Canadian Foundation for Infectious Diseases (CFID).