GAINESVILLE, Florida. – With her frizzy and curly dark brown hair Away from her curious brown eyes, Dr. Ivana Parker spends much of her time in front of her microscope at the University of Florida’s Parker Lab.

It’s a familiar place where she feels comfortable and immerses herself in her research to advance women’s health.

Not long ago, Parker stepped out of her comfort zone when she traveled to South Africa to help solve some of the country’s most pressing women’s health issues.

A North Carolinian at heart, the 37-year-old returned to Florida four years ago to take a position as a researcher and professor at her alma mater, the University of Florida.

“Being able to integrate (biomedical) engineering with health care was important to me,” she said.

Although the UF opportunity gave him the reins to lead his research lab, The Parker laboratoryreturning to Gainesville was not initially in his plans.

She spent years working in South Africa as part of her postdoctoral fellowship as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 2020.

Recognizing that her teaching skills and relational proximity have enabled her to understand the issues impacting African women faced with Bacterial vaginosis (BV) through previously unexplored avenues, Parker was looking for a solution.

“I could see that some questions had not been answered satisfactorily,” Parker recalls. “Furthermore, it should be noted that many of the questions that these questions have not been satisfactorily answered for this population of South African women have also not been answered for black women in the United States.”

BV is a common infection caused by an imbalance between “good” and “bad” vaginal bacteria and typically affects sexually active women ages 15 to 44, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It is also an infection more common among black women.

Parker said witnessing how BV in South African women increased HIV risk “so drastically” influenced her desire to look more closely at the root of the problem.

“Ivana, there are a lot of unanswered questions, and you might be the person to answer them,” she thought.

According to a study published in 2023 on ScienceDirect.comMore than 200 South African women aged 22 to 29 participated in a study which found that 50.6% of them already suffered from BV.

According to Parker, untreated BV can lead to an increased risk of premature birth, cervical cancer, STDs and HIV.

Parker decided to stay abroad to complete his research and applied for various positions in South Africa, but to no avail.

Doubt and devastation filled his mind as each opportunity fell through.

“I applied for a lot of things there. Nothing happened,” Parker mused. “I was really sad that I couldn’t stay at the end of that year.”

The UF opportunity, however, was a blessing in disguise, as she found it helpful to return to a place that wanted to provide her with the funds and resources to continue her efforts in women’s health.

“It allowed me to not have to stay and be under someone at UCT, but to have my own, in a new space and still be able to mentor students who are passionate about the work” , Parker said.

“I felt like the University of Florida was an environment in which I could thrive. Some of the other environments I had worked in academically were very, very harsh. I just felt like it was a place where I could be completely myself,” she continued.

Parker recently received a $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health this spans five years to allow him to continue his research into BV in hopes of finding a more effective solution and addressing concerns about known health disparities between different races.

“What interests me is how to define what is healthy. How do you determine what a healthy vaginal microbiome looks like? So how does this look different based on race and ethnicity? » Parker said.

Through this grant, she will collect samples from 400 women – including women from South Africa and Ghana – and hire and mentor undergraduate and doctoral students to work on projects with her at Parker Lab to “ to analyze the effects and interactions of BV on immune cells. and vaginal tissues,” the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering said in a report on the grant.

Parker’s unwavering dedication to finding a solution to the infectious disease also came from knowing friends and pregnant women who faced recurrent BV infections.

“I’ve seen firsthand the impact this has on my community,” Parker said. “It excites me because I can see the direct implications and impact of this work. »

She hopes her research will identify better treatments or medications that can fight infection, unlike antibiotics which are often prescribed as a temporary solution.

The opportunity to make a local impact that reaches global heights is something Parker described as a privilege for someone who has touched many rooms where she was the only person who looked like her.

“When I think about it, I get very excited,” she says resolutely, recalling a time when she questioned pursuing a doctorate.

She once found herself in spaces where she was excluded, spaces where she counted herself, but even though she described her journey as an “underdog story,” she recognized that grace and God were the only factors that sustained her.

Parker’s family of five, relationship with God, and support from those around him keep him grounded when life can get hectic.

“I think I’ll stay true to these core values: God and my family, and then everything else will come,” she reflected.

Parker is honored to be able to leverage all of her experiences to make a critical impact on underserved communities.

“I feel like I’m an advocate for women’s issues and health issues that need a voice. Unless we are in these spaces and we see it, then often they are not studied,” she said.

And those countless hours spent sitting in front of her microscope in her white coat prove Parker’s unwavering commitment to championing women’s health.