WHAT: The Women's Health Initiative (WHI) embarks on its next phase of research with 12 new contracts awarded last week by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. The studies will help explain the postmenopausal hormone therapy and other clinical trial findings and will investigate the impact of genetic and biological markers on common diseases affecting postmenopausal women. The WHI was a major 15-year research program designed to address the most frequent causes of death, disability and poor quality of life in postmenopausal women -- cardiovascular disease, cancer, and osteoporosis.

The new 2-year research projects will apply innovative technologies to study factors affecting the major diseases in postmenopausal women. Investigators will conduct their research using blood, DNA and other biological samples and clinical data from the 161, 808 postmenopausal women who participated in one or more of the three WHI clinical trials or in the observational study. The total cost of all of the awards is $18, 679, 000.

The studies, institutions, and principal investigators are (alphabetically by institution):

• "Adipokines and Risk of Obesity-Related Diseases, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, Gloria Ho, Ph.D., M.P.H. The research team will examine the association of adipokines (physiologically active proteins from body fat cells) with cancer and stroke risk, and the role of these proteins in the association between obesity and the risk of cancer and stroke.

• "Physical Activity, Obesity, Inflammation, and CHD in a Multi-Ethnic Cohort of Women, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, I-Min Lee, MBBS, ScD. Dr. Lee and colleagues seek to clarify the mechanisms underlying the reduced risk of CHD conferred by physical activity and lower body fat, beyond their effects on traditional risk factors. Using data from the WHI Observation
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