Al-Hendy receives top honors from the Society for Reproductive Investigation

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Dr. Ayman Al-Hendy, an obstetrician-gynecologist and molecular biologist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University and GRHealth, has received two top honors from the Society for Reproductive Investigation.

The President’s Achievement Award honors a junior society member with an outstanding record of scientific investigation and a promising research career. The Rogerio A. Lobo Award, which honors the former society President and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Reproductive Sciences, recognizes outstanding contributions to reproductive sciences by a society member.

Al-Hendy was honored during the society’s 62nd Annual Meeting in San Francisco this week. He has been a member of the society, formerly known as the Society for Gynecologic Investigation, since 2001.

Al-Hendy, who came to MCG last year from Meharry Medical College and Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, is Director of the MCG Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Division of Translational Research and GRU’s Director of Interdisciplinary Translational Research.

His clinical and research interests include improving women’s health care and eliminating disparities, gynecologic endoscopy, and research in reproductive genetics, stem cell biology, and gene therapy. A major focus is fibroids, uterine growths affecting up to 75 percent of women, which can complicate pregnancy and cause excessive bleeding. Al-Hendy is pursuing non-surgical treatment of these typically non-cancerous tumors, which thrive on estrogen and progesterone. He has found that fibroids also tend to thrive in a low vitamin D environment and is pursuing use of the widely available vitamin supplement as a treatment/prevention strategy. Parallel basic science studies are looking at the genetics of why the tumors thrive without vitamin D. Al-Hendy is also a principal investigator in clinical trials looking at drugs that block the progesterone receptor, which, like estrogen receptors, are common in fibroids.

He is a member of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine Research Committee, Chairman of the society’s Health Disparity Special Interest Group and a former Chairman of its Fibroid Special Interest Group programs. He has served on numerous National Institutes of Health Special Emphasis Panels and Study Sections, which most recently includes serving for five years as a Full Member and currently as Chairman of the Integrative & Clinical Endocrinology and Reproduction Study Section.