Marlena Fejzo, Geneticist (fw24-science-summit-ls-marlena-fejzo.jpg)
Women and Adversity
Marlena Fejzo, Ph.D.
Geneticist
One of Time’s 2024
Women of the Year
Pregnant women can thank Marlena Fejzo (Fay⸍zō), Ph.D. for connecting their extreme nausea and vomiting to genetics. Time magazine recognized her achievement and named Fejzo one of its 2024 Women of the Year. Forbes magazine named her in its 50 Over 50 list of high-achieving women.
Fejzo had experienced extreme vomiting and nausea for weeks during her first pregnancy, but it wasn’t until her second she was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum—HG—a condition that confirms this condition during pregnancy and affects 1-3% of pregnancies. She lost weight, had a feeding tube and was bedridden and ultimately lost the fetus. Her doctor dismissed her illness saying she wanted sympathy, but Fejzo knew that wasn’t so. “There was something biological going on,” she says.
In 2018 she published a paper in Nature Communications which suggested the genetic connection, and in 2023 her paper in Nature showed that a hormone produced by the fetus and the mother’s sensitivity to it triggers nausea and vomiting during pregnancy.
Bio:
- 1968 – born Marlena Schoenberg on February 20 in Santa Monica, California
- 1989 – degree in applied math from Brown University, Providence, RI
- 1995 – Ph.D. in genetics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
- 1999 – diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, HG, severe nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, lost the fetus
Career:
- 2000-2020 – research ovarian cancer in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the laboratory of Dennis J. Slamon
- Also did research at University of California, San Francisco
- Also at this time did research on HG
- Now is on research faculty at the University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine
- HER Foundation, research director
- February 21, 2024 – Chief scientific officer of Harmonia Healthcare
Personal life:
- a son
- twin daughters born with a surrogate
- information about her husband isn’t public
- granddaughter of Austrian composers Arnold Schoenberg and Eric Zeisl
- the great-granddaughter of Austrian physician and endocrinologist Rudolf Rafael Kolisch
Further information:
www.hyperemesis.org
keck.usc.edu/news/usc-geneticist-marlena-fejzo
www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/well/marlena-fejzo-hyperemesis-gravidarum.html
time.com/collection/women-of-the-year/6691524/marlena-fejzo
My ebooks available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com:
Honoring 23 Black Women, Recognizing 23 Notable Mothers, Saluting 23 Faithful Suffragists
