Marlena Fejzo, a geneticist at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, has received the inaugural 2025 BioInnovation Institute & Science Translational Medicine Prize for Innovations in Women’s Health. Presented by the BioInnovation Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, the award recognizes researchers who have developed innovative advances with translational potential to impact women’s health globally.
Dr. Fejzo was honored for her discovery of the cause of hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), the most severe form of morning sickness during pregnancy. In 2000, she initiated the largest study to collect data on HG, which ultimately found that a mother’s sensitivity to the hormone GDF15, produced by the fetus, causes morning sickness. Currently, Dr. Fejzo is researching HG prevention and treatment and serves as a science advisor and board member for the Hyperemesis Education and Research Foundation.
At the Keck School of Medicine, Dr. Fejzo serves as a clinical assistant professor of population and public health sciences in the Center for Genetic Epidemiology, where she works to advance many areas of women’s health. In addition to her research on morning sickness, she has published numerous articles on ovarian cancer, breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, and uterine fibroids.
Dr. Fejzo holds a Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard University.