Dr. Silvi Shah to receive the 2024 Dr. Nanette K. Wenger Research Goes Red® Award

American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2024

Embargoed until 7 a.m. CT/8 a.m. ET, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024

DALLAS, Nov. 6, 2024 - Silvi Shah, M.D., M.S., has been selected to be recognized with the 2024 Dr. Nanette K. Wenger Research Goes Red® Award at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2024. Dr. Shah is an associate professor of nephrology and hypertension at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in Cincinnati, Ohio. The meeting, Nov. 16-18, 2024, in Chicago, is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular science. The award will be presented to Dr. Shah during the annual Dr. Nanette K. Wenger Research Goes Red® Award for Best Scientific Article on Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke in Women session at 9:45 a.m. CT, Saturday, Nov. 16.

The Dr. Nanette K. Wenger Research Goes Red^® Award for Best Scientific Article on Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke in Women is named in honor of Nanette K. Wenger, M.D., FAHA, and her pioneering career in women's cardiovascular disease medicine. Dr. Wenger is an emeritus professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine, consultant to the Emory Heart and Vascular Center, founding consultant to the Emory Women's Heart Center and director of the Cardiac Clinics and Ambulatory Electrocardiographic Laboratory at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.

The Dr. Nanette K. Wenger Award is given annually in recognition of the best research article or articles focused on cardiovascular disease and stroke in women published during the previous year in any of the Association's 14 peer-reviewed, scientific journals. The Association's Research Goes Red^® initiative aims to empower women to contribute to health research.

Dr. Shah was selected for this year's award for her article, "Sex Differences in Cardiovascular Outcomes in Patients With Kidney Failure," published in the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) on May 3, 2024. In the study, Dr. Shah and her co-authors reviewed Medicare claims data for more than 500,000 adults who were receiving dialysis for end-stage kidney disease. The analysis found women with kidney failure had higher risks of cardiovascular events, including heart failure and stroke, yet a lower risk of cardiovascular death when compared to male peers in the database. Dr. Shah's research suggests doctors should re-evaluate how they approach prevention and education on heart disease and stroke, as well as promote healthy living with women who have end-stage kidney disease and receive dialysis.

"Dr. Silvi Shah's research on kidney health and women's health during pregnancy has helped expand our knowledge about the unique needs of these populations," said Keith Churchwell, M.D., FAHA, American Heart Association 2024-2025 volunteer president, associate clinical professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, and adjunct associate professor of medicine at the Vanderbilt School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee. "Research on women's health, specifically women's health during pregnancy is lacking, which contributes to significant disparities in care and outcomes. Thank you, Silvi, for your ongoing work to help us reduce this gap, which is critical to improving health equity for all."

Submissions for the Dr. Nanette K. Wenger Research Goes Red for Women Award were evaluated by 55 expert peer reviewers for their scientific impact, innovation, methodology, and quality of data and evidence supporting hypotheses and conclusions. Dr. Shah's work was selected out of 137 submissions from 18 different countries published in the Association's peer-reviewed scientific journals between June 1, 2023 and May 29, 2024.

"It's a great honor to be recognized for doing such important work related to women's health," said Dr. Shah. "As a nephrologist, my first passion will always be the kidneys, which hold great influence over heart health. As a woman, I am all too familiar with the data gaps in research around the effects of health conditions on women, as well as conditions that are specific to women. I'm committed to doing as much as I can to help women know more about their own health and to uncover information that will lead to more personalized and, hopefully, more successful cardiovascular care for women."

Dr. Shah's research interests are kidney disease, sex disparities in kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and women's health with kidney disease, especially during pregnancy. She is the recipient of the K23 Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health. She's an executive member of the Women's Health Community Practice, a subgroup of the American Society of Transplantation, chair of the Association's Kidney and Cardiovascular Disease Scientific & Clinical Education Lifelong Learning (SCILL) committee and leads the Women's Health and Research in Nephrology, a committee of the American Society of Nephrology. A physician who is interested in medical education, she participates in the American Society of Nephrology's In-Training Examination Test Material Development Committee and has written questions for its Kidney Self-Assessment program. Dr. Shah also serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, Kidney360, an open access nephrology journal from the American Society of Nephrology, and two journals published by the National Kidney Foundation: Kidney Medicine, an open access journal, and Advances in Kidney Disease and Health.

Shah earned a medical degree from Maulana Azad Medical College in Delhi, India. She completed her medical training with a residency in internal medicine at the University at Buffalo; a fellowship in nephrology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation; and a fellowship in transplant nephrology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She earned a master's in clinical and translational research at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Shah is board certified in both internal medicine and nephrology.

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