image: Sing Sing Way, MD, PhD
Credit: Cincinnati Children's
An acclaimed physician-scientist at Cincinnati Children’s has received one of the highest honors in healthcare—election to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).
Sing Sing Way, MD, PhD, a leading expert in understanding how the immune system responds to pregnancy, was selected as part of the academy’s 2025 class of members.
Election to NAM recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service. NAM selected Way for his “leadership and advocacy in reproductive and developmental biology research, with seminal contributions describing how pregnancy immunologically works, the maternal-fetal dyad, and immunity in newborn babies.”
A Career of Innovation and Impact
Way holds the Pauline and Lawson Reed Chair in Pediatrics and serves as a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Cincinnati Children’s. He is the founding director of the Center for Inflammation and Tolerance, and since 2019 has served as the coordinating principal investigator for the March of Dimes Ohio Collaborative for Preterm Birth Prevention.
Throughout his career in pediatrics, Way has bridged fundamental biology and translational medicine—advancing knowledge of how the immune system adapts during pregnancy and early life to protect both mother and child. His research has reshaped understanding for how the immune system distinguishes between beneficial and harmful microbes, how maternal immune components change during pregnancy to avoid fetal rejection, and the immunological mechanisms causing stillbirth, preterm birth and other pregnancy complications.
“I am so very thankful to the National Academy of Medicine for highlighting maternal and infant health, including these important but often under-recognized developmental windows of vulnerability,” Way says. “Recognition like this reflects an entire team effort, and the hard work of highly motivated trainees, collaborators and colleagues past and present.”
Way’s scientific contributions have been widely recognized. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholar. He has received the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, an E Mead Johnson award from the Society for Pediatric Research, and the inaugural Gale and Ira Drukier Prize in Children’s Health Research.
A Legacy of Leadership at Cincinnati Children’s
Way joins a 70-year collection of academy members from Cincinnati Children’s that began in 1951 when Albert Sabin, MD, inventor of the oral polio vaccine, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (a predecessor to NAM).
Other current and former Cincinnati Children’s leaders elected to the NAM include: Thomas Boat, MD; Tina Cheng, MD, MPH; Margaret “Peggy” Hostetter, MD; Alan Jobe, MD, PhD; Uma Kotagal, MBBS, MSc; Peter Margolis, MD, PhD; Marc Rothenberg, MD, PhD; Arnold Strauss, MD; and Jeffrey Whitsett, MD.
About Cincinnati Children’s
Cincinnati Children’s is ranked among the best pediatric health systems in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, including the No. 1 spots in cancer care, gastroenterology, and diabetes & endocrinology. As the leader in improving child health, Cincinnati Children’s cares for patients from all 50 states and dozens of countries, including kids with complex or rare disorders. Established in 1883, the academic health system also leads the way in healthcare education and research, where discoveries become innovative treatments and cures that change the outcome for children. All of this is backed by an extraordinary culture that includes nearly 20,000 team members; they are No. 5 in the nation and No. 1 in Ohio on the Forbes list of America’s Best Employers for Healthcare Professionals. For more information: CincinnatiChildrens.org.