Sex and Gender Differences in Aging
seX & whY
Show Notes for Episode Twenty-Six of seX & whY: Sex and Gender Differences in Aging Host: Jeannette Wolfe Guest: Dr Haag is a researcher in molecular epidemiology who studies human biological aging at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Background - Dr Haag has a PhD in functional genomics and Post Doc in genetic and molecular epidemiology. She studies telomeres and molecular association with telomere length, she also has experience in molecular biology and computer science. Definitions and discussion points from podcast - a new field of biomedical science that looks at how the...
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Global Health and Pandemic Responsiveness Through a Sex and Gender Lens Part 2
seX & whY
Show Notes for Episode Twenty-Five of seX & whY, Part 2: Global Health and Pandemic Responsiveness Through a Sex and Gender Lens Host: Jeannette Wolfe Guests: McKinzie Gales and Emelie Yonally Phillips – Global Health Fellow at the CDC and co-lead for Phase I of the multi-agency SAGER IOA project aimed at facilitating better collection, analysis, and use of sex-disaggregated data and gendered data for outbreak response. – Global Health consultant (Epicentre/MSF) and core member of the Integrated Outbreak Analytics initiative ...
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Global Health and Pandemic Responsiveness Through a Sex and Gender Lens Part 1
seX & whY
Show Notes for Episode Twenty-Five of seX & whY: Global Health and Pandemic Responsiveness Through a Sex and Gender Lens Host: Jeannette Wolfe Guests: – Fellow at the CDC and co-lead for Phase I of the multi-agency SAGER IOA project aimed at facilities' better collection, analysis, and use of sex-disaggregated data and gendered data for outbreak response. – Global Health consultant and core member of the Integrated Outbreak Analytics initiative Definitions IOA - Integrated Outbreak Analytics SAGER - Sex and Gender Equity in Research The Integrated Outbreak...
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Sex and Gender Differences in Conflict - Part 2
seX & whY
Show Notes for Episode Twenty-Four of seX & whY: Sex and Gender Differences in Conflict, Part 2 Host: Jeannette Wolfe Guest: Joyce Benenson, lecturer of evolutionary biology at Harvard and author of the book In this podcast we continue our discussion about women interacting with each other at the workplace and how women often manage hierarchy differently than men. We got into a spirited discussion about a question posted on a female physician’s list serve querying whether women physicians want to be addressed as “Doctor” by other staff members. (My own preference was “yes” in...
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Sex and Gender Differences in Conflict - Part 1
seX & whY
Show Notes for Episode Twenty-Four of seX & whY: Sex and Gender Differences in Conflict, Part 1 Host: Jeannette Wolfe Guest: Joyce Benenson, lecturer of evolutionary biology at Harvard and author of the book Warriors and Worriers Here is a link to Dr Benenson’s book . This book dives deep into the evolutionary roots of human behavior and Dr Benenson makes a very clear and well referenced case that human males and females have evolved from slightly different playbooks. The root of this difference is sexual selection in that adaptions and behaviors that optimize the chance...
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Issues Surrounding Men’s Health - Part 2
seX & whY
Show Notes for Episode Twenty-Three of seX & whY: Issues Surrounding Men’s Health, Part 2 Host: Jeannette Wolfe Guests: Peter Baker – Twitter: Dominick Shattuck has a PhD in psychology and does Global Health Work at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Main topics discussed: Challenges and barriers associated with optimizing men’s mental health and the role of men in reproductive health-related issues. Men’s mental health is important not just for men but for the health of communities....
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Issues Surrounding Men’s Health - Part 1
seX & whY
Show Notes for Episode Twenty-Three of seX & whY: Issues Surrounding Men’s Health, Part 1 Host: Jeannette Wolfe Guests: Peter Baker – Twitter: Dominick Shattuck has a PhD in psychology and does Global Health Work at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Here is a of Peter Baker’s publications including Here is a of Dominick Shattuck’s publications Take home points Somewhat ironically even though most major health related organizations are dominated by men in...
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Sex, Drugs, and Rats
seX & whY
Show Notes for Episode Twenty-Two of seX & whY: Sex, Drugs, and Rats Host: Jeannette Wolfe Guest: Dr Irv Zucker, Faculty at UC Berkley since 1966. Interests include behavioral endocrinology, chronobiology, and sex differences in pharmacology General discussion Many times, the worlds of basic science and human clinical trials do not overlap to the degree that they should. Greater coordination between the two silos, especially as it comes to the examination of sex differences, would likely produce more robust, higher quality science that would benefit a greater number of...
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Sex and Gender Differences in Opioid Use Disorder
seX & whY
Show Notes for Episode Twenty-One of seX & whY: Opioid Use Disorder Host: Jeannette Wolfe Guests: Dr Alyson McGregor, author of Sex Matters: How Male-Centric Medicine Endangers Women's Health and What We Can Do About It Dr Lauren Walter Here is link to American Psychiatric Association DSM 5 diagnosis for opioid use disorder from the . Essentially the disorder is defined by continued craving and use of opioids despite significant social and professional consequences caused by its use. This podcast is on sex and gender differences in opioid use disorder. Although sex (s) and gender (g) are...
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Interview With Dr Shirin Heidari Part 2: Gendro - Advancing Sex and Gender Equity in Science Research
seX & whY
Show Notes for Episode Twenty of seX & whY: Interview With Dr Shirin Heidari Part 2: Gendro - Advancing Sex and Gender Equity in Science Research Host: Jeannette Wolfe Guest: Shirin Heidari PhD, virologist and experimental oncologist, founding President of Gendro. Part 2 of Interview with Dr Shirin Heidari This podcast focuses on Dr Heidari’s work on systematically integrating the variables of sex and gender into different access points along the research pipeline. She helped start an organization called which is dedicated to this mission. The three major gatekeeping posts...
info_outlineShow Notes for Episode Nineteen of seX & whY: About Vaccine Research
Host: Jeannette Wolfe
Guests:
- Christine Dahlke, Biologist and vaccine researcher at University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendor and The German Center for Infection Research
- Marylyn M Addo, Physician, Professor, Infectious disease specialist and vaccine researcher from University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendor and The German Center for Infection Research
Link to their paper: Sex Differences in Immunity: Implications for the Development of Novel Vaccines Against Emerging Pathogens
Take-home points
- Vaccine development has evolved over the years from having each vaccine be independently developed “one drug for one bug” to “plug and play” platform technology in which a vector that predictably and effectively triggers the immune system is attached to a new pathogen’s antigen (or mRNA or DNA that codes for that antigen), allowing for a much more accelerated development of new vaccines because researchers are not starting from scratch every time.
- Researchers often test antibody levels to determine vaccine efficacy but, immunization changes other aspects of the immune system such as t cell response and some innate immunity too. These changes may be more difficult to test but may also be important for long term protection even if antibody levels fall.
- Traditionally, drug companies have not been all that excited about developing vaccines due to the lack of a profit margin compared to a drug someone needs to take every day. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) helped jump start vaccine development in 2017 (apparently this was sparked by the realization that Ebola could have become a global pandemic and that we needed more tools to develop rapid turn- around vaccines.)
- Sex differences - due to sex hormones and chromosomes - influence how a body’s innate and adaptative immune system works. Women generally having an advantage in fighting off infection by having a more robust innate and adaptative immune system. This may come at a cost of increased risk for autoimmune disease and in Covid, women are also much more likely to have long haul Covid symptoms. Age can act as an additional confounder with males having more impaired antibody response and increased innate inflammatory responses with age
- Most immune cells have sex steroid receptors on them
- Many genes that influence the immune system are housed on the X chromosome and some of them like Toll-like receptor 7 - aka the Paul Revere of the early immune response, may not undergo X-inactivation leading to it’s over expression in females and possibly giving them an advantage in decreasing their viral load compared to males after similar exposures.
Other references:
Paper referred in podcast about Dr Klein: Bishof E, Wolfe J, Klein S - Clinical trials for COVID-19 should include sex as a variable.
Podcast from last summer with my interview with Evelyn Bishof and Sabra Klein about Sex Differences in Immunology and Drug Therapy
Herpes vaccine trial showing efficacy in females and not in males.
Here are some videos on the immune system:
- Dr Iwasaki
- Made Easy
- New York Times article nicely explaining how different vaccines work