(Photo by iStock/Nadzeya Haroshka)
The LGBTQ+ community has long suffered both health and health-care disparities in comparison with the general public. Studies have shown that LGBTQ+ people have poorer physical and mental health than heterosexual and cisgender populations. The ongoing Pride Study has revealed that questions about gender and sexuality historically have not been included on medical forms, consequently making it a challenge to provide LGBTQ+ people the care they need. Homophobia and transphobia are additional barriers to health care. A 2022 report from the Center for American Progress found that more than a fifth of LGBTQ+ individuals postponed medical treatment because of discrimination by medical providers.
Touted as a “first-of-its-kind academic social entrepreneurship lab,” the Eidos LGBTQ+ Health Initiative is a new multidisciplinary project from the University of Pennsylvania’s (UPenn’s) School of Nursing seeking solutions to LGBTQ+ health inequities. Launched in January 2022, Eidos is the brainchild of José Bauermeister, a professor and chair of the Department of Family and Community Health at the School of Nursing. He envisions Eidos as a hub for partnerships between academia, business, policy makers, and health-care providers.
Eidos convenes cross-sector collaborations to help projects directly affecting LGBTQ+ people go from idea to market. While many schools have tech-transfer offices that support faculty business ventures, those working on LGBTQ+ health need more institutional support. Similarly, businesses in need of research and development services can partner with Eidos to access the latest LGBTQ+ health research and expertise at the university.
UPenn provided Eidos initial funding as part of its university-wide investment of $750 million in novel therapeutics, health-related initiatives, data engineering, and science. The funding has enabled Eidos to establish partnerships and hire a staff of 21. Dozens of faculty at UPenn’s 12 schools are also affiliates of the lab.
Jessica Halem joined Eidos as senior director in June 2022 after serving as the inaugural LGBTQ+ director at Harvard Medical School. She points to Eidos’ condom project—Project SLIP—as exemplifying the lab’s mission to help an idea find a commercial future.
Project SLIP began in Bauermeister’s lab in 2018, after he and a few colleagues discussed condoms’ decreased use within the LGBTQ+ community. Bauermeister then convened a group of experts—Robert Carpick, an expert in functional tribology; Shu Yang, a materials scientist at UPenn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science; and the team from the Penn Center for AIDS Research—to create an improved lubricated condom. The collective determined that hydrogel should be the condom’s primary material. “It’s very biocompatible with the body,” UPenn School of Nursing’s project manager Willey Lin says. “Today, it’s used for wound healing, by being injected inside the body to release drugs.”
Importantly, hydrogel can also be loaded with medications such as tenofovir, which prevents and treats HIV. The team made a custom double hydrogel and won a patent for their invention.
Halem envisions building partnerships with everyone who has an idea for improving the lives of LGBTQ+ people. “We are not wedded to any one sector,” she says. “What if, five years from now, I could list 100 new start-ups for and by the LGBTQ+ community that Eidos had a hand in helping?”
Among Eidos’ current partnerships is one with TRACE, an app built by and for members of the transgender community to connect with each other during their transition. TRACE’s team plans to utilize data related to trans health available through Eidos to bring in investors.
Bauermeister hopes “Eidos can serve as a blueprint for centers across universities” that focus on other pressing social issues. “Within Penn,” he adds, “there could be one on transforming racial justice, housing instability, and gender inequality.”
Read more stories by Abigail Lynn.