Geneticist Wins Women’s Health Prize for Pioneering Discoveries About Severe Morning Sickness

2 April 2025

by: Joseph Cariz

Geneticist Marlena Fejzo has been awarded the inaugural 2025 BioInnovation Institute & Science Translational Medicine Prize for Innovations in Women's Health for her leading discoveries about the genetic basis of severe morning sickness.

The award also recognizes her pioneering work to eventually create a cure for this debilitating and potentially deadly complication of pregnancy.

The scientist recounted her career and discussed some of her most important research findings in more detail in Science Translational Medicine.

"We put men on the moon decades ago, but women are still dying from severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy," Fejzo writes in her prize-winning essay.

Fejzo, a medical scientist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, will present on her discoveries at an award ceremony on April 29 at the BioInnovation Institute (BII) in Copenhagen, Denmark. She will also receive a cash prize of $25,000.

"We are delighted that Dr. Marlena Fejzo is the winner of the inaugural BII and Science Translational Medicine Innovations in Women's Health prize," said Orla Smith, editor of Science Translational Medicine. "Dr. Fejzo's groundbreaking work on the molecular mechanisms underpinning severe morning sickness has implicated the hormone GDF15 as a key player in this understudied disorder, paving the way for the development of new treatments."

The BII & Science Translational Medicine Prize aims to recognize and elevate scientists who have made groundbreaking research discoveries that have the potential to impact women's health around the world.

The prize is funded by BII, an international nonprofit foundation that offers early-stage funding and business development support to researchers and entrepreneurs working in the life sciences.

"It's truly inspiring to see Dr. Marlena Fejzo recognized with the BII & Science Translational Medicine Prize for Innovations in Women's Health," said Jens Nielsen, CEO of BII.

"Her groundbreaking research, from uncovering the first genes linked to uterine fibroids and nausea in pregnancy to advancing our understanding of ovarian cancer and multiple sclerosis, exemplifies the power of science to transform lives," he added.

Immense But Neglected Burden on Mothers

Severe morning sickness, or hyperemesis gravidarum, is a dangerous condition involving excessive vomiting during pregnancy. The vomiting can be so severe that the patient experiences weight loss and dehydration and requires hospitalization.

Hyperemesis gravidarum can appear in as many as 2% of all pregnancies worldwide, according to a 2023 study. It can lead to life-threatening complications such as tears in the esophagus, liver failure, coma and death.

In her essay, Fejzo discusses how the disease is a leading cause of death in mothers in low- and middle-income countries. For example, one study recently reported that hyperemesis gravidarum is the fourth leading cause of maternal deaths in Botswana.

Furthermore, deaths continue to be reported in the U.S. and UK. In one recent case, a 26-year-old British woman took her own life while struggling with hyperemesis gravidarum during her pregnancy.

"People should not still be dying from severe nausea and vomiting of pregnancy, but women are far too often told their severe symptoms are normal or that they are exaggerating, leading to a lack of treatment and poor and sometimes fatal outcomes," Fejzo said.

Progress into treatments has been glacial in large part due to the neglect that has historically surrounded women's health issues, Fejzo said, as well as mistaken beliefs about the disease being psychological in nature.

Another huge barrier in research appeared because of the "thalidomide disaster" in the 1960s. Doctors at the time began to prescribe the sedative drug thalidomide to mothers with hyperemesis gravidarum, but the drug ended up causing birth defects and led to limb deformities in some babies.

This incident led to a major drop in interest and financial backing for creating a cure, and government agencies have been reluctant to provide further support.

Fejzo recounts how she herself suffered from a severe case of hyperemesis gravidarum during her own pregnancy in 1999, eventually leading to her hospitalization and the loss of her child.

This tragedy motivated the scientist to probe the origins of severe morning sickness, which were still a mystery. Armed with a Ph.D. from Harvard University and years of experience as a geneticist, she harnessed genetic analysis tools to study the condition's core causes.

Getting To The Genetic Roots of Morning Sickness

In one large study, Fejzo examined DNA from more than 16,000 people and compared how gene expression differed in people with hyperemesis gravidarum. Her research identified two genes named GDF15 and IGFBP7 that were strong predictors of the disease.

Another genetic study solidified the link between severe morning sickness and a mutation in GDF15. This gene encodes a hormone that is involved in how we respond to stress and is linked to nausea and vomiting, according to her essay.

After making these discoveries, Fejzo's team began to investigate ways to target GDF15 in clinical settings, aiming to eventually discover a cure for the disease. The group is also collaborating with a treatment center focused on hyperemesis gravidarum to test new therapeutics.

They are currently conducting a clinical trial of metformin in women trying to conceive, theorizing that this diabetes drug could help desensitize women to rising GDF15 levels during pregnancy.

"Metformin is available in generic form, so it is relatively affordable," Fezjo said. "If it works to prevent hyperemesis gravidarum, it provides a relatively equitable approach to mitigating symptoms."

She also expects that even cheaper medications will appear if more research comes out showing that GDF15 could be a safe target. The market would likely be huge, as more than 1 in 4 pregnant women in the U.S. request medications for nausea and vomiting, Fejzo noted.

When asked about her next steps, the geneticist said that she's currently planning to study how other genes besides GDF15 fit into the genetic puzzle of morning sickness. She stressed that there's still many aspects of the disease's biology that we don't understand.

"I'm very excited to see the results of these upcoming prevention and treatment trials based, in part, on my work," Fejzo said. "It is a very emotional time for me given that I suffered profoundly from the disease and have spent decades working on it."