BY KAREN BOSSICK

Two small, almond-shaped glands located on either side of the uterus form eggs which can be transformed into babies. These ovaries also create the female hormones estrogen and progesterone, which shape females’ bodies.

Dr. Jennifer M. Garrison sees them as the architect of health and the pacemaker for aging in female bodies. And the co-director of the Center for Healthy Aging in Women at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, Calif., will discuss how we might optimize healthy aging in women with more knowledge about ovaries at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 25, at The Community Library.

Garrison is pioneering a global movement to advance research science focused on how ovaries impact women’s health across their lives. It’s a challenge as women’s health has barely garnered 10 percent of research dollars and 4 percent of biopharma investment while impacting more than half of the world’s population.

Less than 0.1 percent of that research money has gone to study ovarian aging.

Garrison says that, while women outlive men by a few years on average, they experience a disproportionately longer period of poor health because ovaries age faster than other tissues. Garrison,  co-founder and executive director of ProductiveHealth.org, studies how changes in the conversation between ovaries and brain may lead to accelerated aging in females.

She’s trying to find out how and why ovaries age before other tissues in the belief that understanding the process from before puberty through the end of life could be key to enhancing women’s health span.

To see the program in person, RSVP at https://thecommunitylibrary.libcal.com/event/13206980. The program will also be livestreamed and available to watch later at https://vimeo.com/event/4813484.