Abstract
The growing evidence of gender-specific differences in drug efficacy and adverse reactions has prompted urgent action in biomedical research. Because the June 2015 statement from NIH in the US was issued, there has been a great deal of recent attention to sex difference research. With the rise of sex difference research, sex differences have been observed in the onset, diagnosis, and progression of diseases of organs other than the reproductive organs, and some mechanisms have been explained by sex hormone action, but many remain unknown. In our laboratory, we are mainly focusing on biological sex differences in the cardiovascular field. For example, the risk of delayed ventricular repolarization and the incidence of drug-induced arrhythmias are known to be more prone to women than to men. This sex difference is associated with a longer QT interval in adult women than in men of the same age. Changes during puberty and the menstrual cycle suggest a sex hormone influence. However, there is still no set strategy on how to translate the results of such basic research into clinical practice. We aim to elucidate the mechanism of sex differences using an integrated approach that incorporates human iPS cells and simulations. In this symposium, we would like to present our original approach and discuss future issues.
