UF doctor vies to ‘be the person to answer’ pressing questions in fight to advance women’s health, reach global heights

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – With her kinky-coily dark brown hair pulled away from her inquisitive brown eyes, Dr. Ivana Parker spends much of her time in front of her microscope in The Parker Lab at the University of Florida.

It’s a familiar place where she feels comfortable, diving into 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 tackle 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 research and professor position at her alma mater, the University of Florida.

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

While the UF opportunity gave her the reigns to direct her research lab, The Parker Lab, returning to Gainesville wasn’t initially in her plans.

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

Recognizing that her educational skills and relational proximity allowed her to view issues impacting African women dealing with Bacterial Vaginosis (BV) in previously unexplored ways, Parker aimed to find a solution.

“I was able to see ways that certain questions had not been answered well,” Parker recalled. “Also, see that a lot of the ways those questions had not been answered well for that population of South African women also had not been answered for Black women in the United States.”

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

It is also an infection that is more prevalent among Black women.

Parker said she witnessed how BV in South African women increased the risk of HIV “so drastically,” which influenced her urge to take a closer look at the root of the problem.

“Ivana, there are a lot of questions that are unanswered, and you could be the person to answer those,” she tells herself.

According to a study published in 2023 on ScienceDirect.com, over 200 South African women between the ages of 22 and 29 years old participated in a study that revealed 50.6% of the women already had BV.

Untreated BV can lead to increased risk for pre-term birth, cervical cancer, STDs and HIV, according to Parker.

Parker set her sights on remaining overseas to finish her research and applied for various positions in South Africa but to no avail.

Doubt and devastation filled her spirit when every opportunity fell through.

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

The UF opportunity, however, was a blessing in disguise as she found value in returning to a place that wanted to load her with the funds and resources to continue her endeavors in women’s health.

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

“I felt like the University of Florida was an environment where I could flourish. Some of the other environments that I had been in academically were very, very harsh. I just felt that it was a place I could be my whole self,” she continued.

Parker recently received a $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health that stretches over five years to allow her to further her BV research in hopes of finding a more effective solution and addressing concerns about known health disparities among different races.

“What I am interested in is how do we define what’s healthy. How do we find what a healthy vaginal microbiome looks like? Then, how does that look different based on race and ethnicity?” Parker said.

With the grant, she will gather samples from 400 women — including women from South Africa and Ghana — and hire and mentor undergrad and doctoral students to work on projects with her in The Parker Lab to “analyze the effects and interactions of BV on immune cells and vaginal tissue,” the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering said in a report about the grant.

Parker’s unshakable dedication to finding a solution for the infectious condition also stemmed from knowing friends and pregnant women who have dealt with recurrent BV infections.

“I’ve seen firsthand how it impacts my community,” Parker explained. “I am passionate about it because I can see the direct implications and impact of the work.”

She hopes her research will identify better therapies or medicines that can combat the infection opposed to the antibiotics that 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 reflect, I get very excited,” she said resolutely, remembering a time when she questioned pursuing a doctorate.

She was once in spaces where she was counted out, spaces where she counted herself out, but although she described her journey as an “underdog story,” she acknowledged that grace and God were the only factors that sustained her.

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

“I think staying true to those 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 crucial impact in underserved communities.

“I feel like I’m advocating for women’s issues and health issues that need a voice. Unless we’re in these spaces and see it, then oftentimes, they don’t get studied,” she said.

And those countless hours spent sitting in front of her microscope in her white lab coat prove Parker’s unwavering commitment to being an advocate for women’s health.