Women in Transplantation (WIT), a Special Initiative of The Transplantation Society, is delighted to announce our WIT Research Fellowship n Gender and Sex Award winners for 2024, as well as our WIT Research Grant for Projects on Gender and Sex in Transplantation (LMIC) winner.

This is the fourth year that we are able to offer these fellowships, which will support the next generation of scientists, furthering our understanding of the importance of sex and gender in transplantation. This is a growing field of interest and the more we learn the closer we are to applying these findings to clinical care to benefit patients and donors.

This initiative was made possible with support from our partners for this cycle: Sanofi and Paladin.

Sanofi Fellowship Award Winner

  • Dr. Sumoyee Basu
    King’s College London, UK

    Project Title:
    Exploring how T and B cell populations regulate the development of HLA Antibodies, comparing pregnancy and transplantation to inform novel strategies to help sensitised renal patients awaiting (re)transplantation

Mentors

  • Dr. Giovanna Lombardi
    Kings College London, UK
  • Dr. Kate Bramham
    Kings College London, UK

Paladin Fellowship Award Winner

  • Dr. Slaghaniya Neupane
    University of Toronto, ON, Canada

    Project Title:
    Investigating Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 4 Alpha as a Central Regulator of Kidney Graft Repair in a Sex-Specific Fashion

Mentor

  • Dr. Ana Konvalinka
    University of Toronto, ON, Canada

WIT also wishes to take this opportunity to announce the winner of the Women in Transplantation Research Grant for faculty working in low or middle income (LMIC) countries. This is the second year which we have been able to fund this grant, which we hope will continue to really make a difference to transplantation in LMIC and to research capacity in these countries.

LMIC Research Grant Winner

  • Dr. Sukanya Govindan
    Mehta Hospital, Chennai, India

    Project Title:
    Gender disparities in clinical and social outcomes in young people receiving renal replacement therapy in South Asia

Mentors

  • Dr. Edwin Fernando
    Mehta Hospital, Chennai, India
  • Dr. Karen Dwyer
    Deakin University School of Medicine
    Melbourne, Australia

We look forward to collaborating with these teams, and to learning from the findings of their exciting research projects.