Linda Giudice

Linda C. Giudice is an American gynecologist and obstetrician whose research has focused on the genetics of infertility, endometriosis, and the mechanisms of the menstrual cycle, along with the impacts of environmental pollutants on women's fertility. A New Yorker, she had an accelerated education with a heavy emphasis on the sciences, moving through multiple disciplines of engineering for her undergraduate and graduate degrees. Her postdoctoral fellowships introduced her to translational medicine and the genetics of women's health, resulting in her returning to her studies to obtain a medical degree.

Afterwards, she has spent her professorship for multiple decades at Stanford University and then the University of California, San Francisco, becoming tenured chair of several obstetrics and gynecology departments. A member of many professional academic organizations, she has also been and remains president or board member for a collection of reproductive health groups and non-profits. She has been given a number of awards and honorary professorships for her work and public outreach, nationally and internationally.

Early life and education Chemistry and engineering Born in Brooklyn, New York to an immigrant family, with a Sicilian father and a second generation mother whose parents were from Italy, Giudice was taught strong values about education from a young age. This focus resulted in her repeatedly skipping grades in both elementary and high school and openly pursuing her interests in math and science, along with many other fields as well. In the middle of her attending high school, her family moved to Norfolk, Virginia, due to her father being transferred in the military and she completed her education there.

Her interests in chemistry and physics led her to pursue a degree in engineering, with an aim of eventually going into nuclear engineering. After starting classes at Columbia University, however, she found that chemistry was of greater interest to her and changed her major to obtain a Bachelor's of Science in chemical engineering. Continuing with this at Washington University in St. Louis, she received a Master's degree in biomedical engineering and then studied under John Pierce at the University of California, Los Angeles to earn a Ph.D. focusing on the biological function and molecular structure of gonadotropins. This also resulted in her learning more about reproductive hormones and the biological underpinnings of how genetics shapes reproduction. She is also emeritus faculty at Stanford, now as Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor.

She has advocated for the use of IVF to treat infertility issues and overall suggested that using the process to delay motherhood is an option for women. Relatedly, she was appointed in 2002 as chair of the Food and Drug Administration's Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs.

Research Due to attending the pediatric endocrinology lab meetings, Giudice developed a passion for insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) and particularly insulin-like growth factor-binding protein (IGFBP), because of its involvement in the uterine decidua. Her lab's work on the serum of pregnant women found that IGF-I and II are increased due to the action of a protease in cleaving IGFBP-3. This discovery required the usage of a cloned protein created by Genentech, which was also found simultaneously by a French lab. Presenting what they found jointly at the annual Endocrine Society meeting, they decided to write papers separately on different components of what had been found and publish them back-to-back in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. This finding, alongside her lab's later reveal that IGFBP-4's protease comes from the trophoblast, helped further explain how IGFs function as a whole and their importance beyond just reproduction, but also in the field of oncology's research on cancer development. Organizing a conference on the subject with other reproductive endocrinologists, fertility organizations, and national politicians, she presented her preliminary findings and had a discussion on possible impacts. This also led her to create the Program for Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE) at UCSF and a second following conference, whose findings eventually led to the publication of the textbook Environmental impacts on reproductive health and fertility.

In total, she has published over 350 papers in her field of research. the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, and the World Endometriosis Society. and the American Medical Women's Association named her the 2008 Women in Science Award winner. She was also given multiple official lecturer positions, such as by the NIH, the NICHD Sadler lecturer position, and the Royal Reproductive Biology Society's Founders Oration position and medal.