Advancing women’s health is not only a medical need but a societal imperative, yet the field has historically been critically underfunded, receiving less than 5% of global research investment despite affecting half the world’s population. In this seminar, Dr. Kaitlin Fogg will share how her research program develops three-dimensional tissue models of the cervix, endometrium, and vagina that replicate human biology and allow for rapid testing of potential therapies. These models provide insights into how cancers and conditions such as endometriosis progress, opening new avenues for effective treatments.
Her work spans three interconnected areas. First, her team analyzes large-scale patient datasets to uncover how changes in the tissue environment drive disease and influence outcomes. Second, they use engineering design approaches to create laboratory models that closely resemble patient tissues, capturing the complexity of human biology while remaining compatible with drug screening platforms. Third, they develop open-source computational tools that allow researchers worldwide to automatically track how cells grow, move, and interact over time.
Beyond her laboratory, Dr. Fogg has helped build a national research community in biomaterials for women’s health, co-editing a landmark roadmap article and co-chairing tracks at major societies. Looking ahead, her team is expanding their models to lung and skin tissues to investigate how hormones influence inflammation and drug delivery, while also working toward automated, high-throughput drug screening and integrating systems biology approaches to uncover new therapeutic targets in gynecological disease. Together, these efforts are laying the groundwork for new therapies, new technologies, and a stronger research community dedicated to women’s health.
Kaitlin Fogg, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Bioengineering at Oregon State University. Since joining OSU in 2019, she has built a nationally recognized research program at the intersection of women’s health and engineering, developing advanced tissue models and computational tools that enable high-throughput drug screening and support the global tissue engineering community. Her work has been supported by more than $4 million in funding, including NIH R35 and R21 awards, and has earned national recognition through honors such as the Young Innovator Award from Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering and the Emerging Scholar in Biomaterials Award from the Society for Biomaterials.
In addition to her research, Dr. Fogg has played a leading role in community building for women’s health research. She has organized and chaired special sessions, panels, and tracks at major societies, including initiating the first women’s health session at BMES in 2020, helping establish it as a dedicated track in 2021, moderating a national panel on women’s health funding in 2023, and serving as co-chair of the BMES Women’s Health Track for 2024. She currently co-chairs the Society for Biomaterials Health Equity Special Interest Group, is co-organizing the Women’s Health track at SFB, and serves as Vice Chair of the 2026 Gordon Research Conference on Signal Transduction by Engineered Extracellular Matrices. Across these roles, she has worked to build visibility, infrastructure, and collaboration in women’s health research.