Dr. Raina Fichorova received her MD and followed by PhD in reproductive immunology from the Medical University of Sofia and completed Fellowship in Reproductive Immunology at HMS/BWH. She was appointed to the Harvard University Faculty in 1997, rising within the ranks from Instructor to a Harvard Medical School Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology. In 2002 Dr. Fichorova founded within the Department of OB/GYN the Genital Tract Biology Division, the first Research Division to be uniquely accredited by the College of American Pathologists (CAP) at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her Laboratory of Genital Tract Biology has been performing basic and translational research under CAP accreditation for over a decade.

Dr. Fichorova is an NIH supported PI with over 150 publications at the intersection of immunology and reproductive health, and with a special interest in inflammation and microbiome.  Her basic research unveiled molecular mechanisms of host-microbiota-protozoan interactions underlying bacterial vaginosis and human trichomoniasis, the most common non-viral sexually transmitted infection, and has discovered the role of protozoan endosymbiont viruses in human disease. She has also contributed to understanding inflammation as a driver of preterm birth, preeclampsia and developmental problems in the extremely low gestation age born.

Dr. Fichorova’s current research investigates how maternal microbes regulate the reproductive tract immunity and how reproductive hormones and contraceptives modify this environment.