Sex as a biological variable in renal, metabolic, and cardiovascular physiology: eighteen years of leadership by the American Physiological Society

摘要

Recent mandates from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) requiring the consideration of sex as a biological variable in NIH-funded research have resulted in an increase in the inclusion of females in experimental studies. As more investigators include animals of both sexes in their experiments and as clinicians perform studies sufficiently powered to determine whether there are sex differences, the scientific community is beginning to identify molecular, cellular, and systems-based differences between males and females that affect normal physiology, responses to pathological conditions, and responses to therapeutics. As a result, the topic of sex and gender is of growing interest to many in the scientific community. The American Physiological Society (APS) promoted the understanding of sex as a biological variable well before the NIH mandate was set. In 2001, the APS sponsored a conference entitled "Genome and Hormones: An Integrative Approach to Gender Differences in Physiology" thus establishing itself as a leader in understanding the influence of biological sex on physiology and pathophysiology. As a testament to the quality of the 2001 meeting and the strong interests of the APS membership, similarly titled conferences took place in 2007, 2009, 2011, and 2015, establishing the physiology of sex differences as one of the most important topics brought to the APS conference committee and the topic of APS-sponsored conferences that recurs the most.