Female Sex and Gender in Lung/Sleep Health and Disease. Increased Understanding of Basic Biological, Pathophysiological, and Behavioral Mechanisms Leading to Better Health for Female Patients with Lung Disease.

Female sex/gender is an undercharacterized variable in studies related to lung development and disease. Notwithstanding, many aspects of lung and sleep biology and pathobiology are impacted by female sex and female reproductive transitions. These may manifest as differential gene expression or peculiar organ development.

Integrating topics of sex and gender into medical curricula-lessons from the international community.

In the era of individualized medicine, training future scientists and health-care providers in the principles of sex- and gender-based differences in health and disease is critical in order to optimize patient care. International successes to incorporate these concepts into medical curricula can provide a template for others to follow. Methodologies and resources are provided that can be adopted and adapted to specific needs of other institutions and learning situations.

Gender-specific medicine in the genomic era.

This article is intended to illuminate several important changes in our concept of gender-specific medicine in the genomic era. It reviews the history of gender-specific medicine, pointing out the changes in our perception of the nature of biological sex and our expanding knowledge of how it affects the phenotype. The old debate about 'nature versus nurture' is now largely resolved; the two are inextricably intertwined as a result of epigenomic regulation of gene expression; many of the resulting phenotypic changes are inherited and affect future generations.