Wendy Brewster

Wendy Rosamund Brewster (May 24, 1966 – July 24, 2023) was a British-born American gynaecologist who was Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Director of the Center for Women's Health Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Early life and education Wendy Rosamund Brewster was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England on May 24, 1966. She was raised in Guyana. She realised at the age of six that she wanted to be a physician. She studied mathematics and Spanish at Rutgers University. Brewster studied medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. She specialised in gynaecological surgery and oncology. Brewster was a medical fellow at the University of California, Irvine, where she worked in gynaecologic oncology. During the first year of her fellowship she studied indicators in breast cancer survivors who go on to develop a second primary cancer. Brewster led a National Cancer Institute trial that invited women on low incomes into hospital for a cervical cancer screening, which improved their treatment and follow up rates.

In 2008, Brewster joined the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was made Director for the Center for Women's Health Research. She identified bacteria in women's ovaries and fallopian tubes, part of the reproductive tract that was previously understood to be sterile. Brewster also showed that women with ovarian cancer have different bacterial populations to those without cancer, indicating that these bacterial populations may impact cancer progression. She was Chair of the Cancer Prevention and Control Committee. Diabetic neuropathy, nerve growth factor and other neurotrophic factors