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Physicians Committee Scientist Speaks About Need for Human-Based Women’s Health Research at NIH Meeting
In April 2026, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Advisory Committee on Research on Women's Health met to discuss the state of women’s health research across the agency. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine’s medical research specialist, Jessica Kopew, PhD, provided an oral comment about the need to shift away from animal experimentation for women’s health research and prioritize human-based methods.
The advisory committee plays an important role in guiding agency-wide efforts on women's health research, making it an ideal target for Physicians Committee advocacy.
Currently, the NIH invests billions of dollars in studies that use animals, including for women’s health research, where mice, primates, sheep, and pigs are commonly used in an attempt to better understand women’s biology and sex-specific diseases and risk factors. However, these animals differ in important ways from women, including anatomy, menstruation patterns, hormonal profiles, length of pregnancy, and more. In addition, animal studies are unable to capture many real-world factors that influence women’s health, like socioeconomic conditions, access to health care, or lifestyle choices.
Dr. Kopew spoke about shifting away from animal use toward human-based women’s health research, bringing this key area of NIH’s research portfolio in line with agency-wide efforts. Methods grounded in human biology, such as organ-on-a-chip technologies, can better mimic how the human body works. Models like cervix-, ovary-, vagina-, and placenta-on-a-chip are already being used to study a range of women’s health issues, including cancer, reproduction, and endometriosis.
Dr. Kopew also invited meeting attendees to the Summer Immersion on Innovative Approaches in Science, which took place June 15-18, 2026, in Baltimore, Md., where there was a session on human-based women’s health research.
