USC Geneticist receives Innovations in Women’s Health award for research on severe morning sickness

USC Geneticist Marlena Fejzo, PhD, has been awarded the inaugural 2025 BioInnovation Institute & Science Translational Medicine Prize for Innovations in Women’s Health for her discovery of the cause of the most severe form of morning sickness in pregnancy, Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG).

The award, presented by the BioInnovation Institute, located in Copenhagen, Denmark, recognizes researchers who have developed innovative advances with translational potential to impact women’s health globally.

Since 2000, Fejzo initiated the largest study to collect data on HG globally. Through a series of subsequent genetic studies, she found that a mother’s sensitivity to the hormone GDF15, produced by the fetus, causes morning sickness. HG is the second leading cause of pregnancy-related hospitalization after preterm birth.

“It’s great to receive this recognition and continue to spread the word for people to know that this is a real condition that leads to adverse maternal and child outcomes and requires better therapies,” says Fejzo, a clinical assistant professor of population and public health sciences at Keck School of Medicine of USC.

Fejzo was selected for this award through her essay describing her path toward identifying the GDF15 hormone and her current work on prevention and treatment, which was published in Science Translational Medicine. She received her award and presented her findings during the Grand Award Ceremony on April 29, 2025, in Copenhagen, and received an unrestricted prize of $25,000.

“In 1999, I suffered nausea and vomiting of pregnancy (NVP) so severe I could not eat, drink, or move without violently vomiting. I had to lie totally flat and still for weeks and was eventually put on seven medications at once, but nothing helped…I saw how little was known about morning sickness and the most severe form, Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG),” Fejzo wrote in her winning essay.

She has been researching HG ever since. Fejzo has dedicated her entire career to advancing women’s health, from identifying the first genes associated with uterine fibroids to researching ovarian cancer and multiple sclerosis, and now finding the main cause of HG inspired by her lived experience.

“Studies continue to show how this condition has a long-lasting impact both on mothers and their children, and hopefully soon we will have ways to prevent the extreme suffering and poor outcomes,” says Fejzo.